[Sacarious]

So.. I have noticed a trend when it comes to a very common method of writing that uses the sequence
(hypothetically) Eminor, D and C
You can find it in a million songs, from the trooper, killers, runnin down a dream, lots of metal songs from the 70s and 80s use it.

Using this method allows you to use a "round" synth that will repeat the same loop over and over while the chord progression plays.

Perfect example of this is right here in The Trooper right after the intro
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Does anyone use this method for writing? I have noticed that I kind of resort to it sometimes because its just so damn easy to get some emotion out of a track.
But i fear its closed me into a musical box.

There are a few variations of it with suspended notes and what nots, but the basic process is quite simple.
Any takers?

[Jaded]

It's not very original or interesting.

[chasedobson]

I use this a lot, but a lot of my music incorporates a lot of drones.

Many of my drones come in the form of pedal tones on the guitar and from repeated (often looped guitar) melodic elements.

[Sacarious]

Originally Posted by Jaded

It's not very original or interesting.

No its not, to producers lol
but you have to admit, there is a TON of different things you can do to make it interestingm in my opinion anyway haha.

[Jaded]

Originally Posted by Sacarious

No its not, to producers lol

I was more getting at the fact that it's one of the first progressions you'll learn in music and thus it's ubiquitous in music at large. And yes, it is unoriginal for producers (assuming by producer you mean electronic musician) too.

Originally Posted by Sacarious

but you have to admit, there is a TON of different things you can do to make it interestingm in my opinion anyway haha.

Not really. You can make a 3 5 7 sound interesting, sure. The way to do that is by making it not 3 5 7. But hey, if you want to sound generic and indistinguishable, 3 5 7 every day!

[Sacarious]

Originally Posted by Jaded

I was more getting at the fact that it's one of the first progressions you'll learn in music and thus it's ubiquitous in music at large. And yes, it is unoriginal for producers (assuming by producer you mean electronic musician) too.



Not really. You can make a 3 5 7 sound interesting, sure. The way to do that is by making it not 3 5 7. But hey, if you want to sound generic and indistinguishable, 3 5 7 every day!

If i posted some examples of my own songs using this, would you provide me some feedback as to what makes them not creative? This is super interesting to me. It reminds me of the three chord punk songs that got so famous back in the day lol.

[Jimjimmy]

Don't say you do because you don't

[Valk]

It's a divergence of ideas - a music theory thing that just creeps into all music because it's a simple technique to effectively create interesting(enough) melodies

I think it's related to Triad Inversions or just some arpeggio of a common chord that makes you think 3,5,7 is fancy, have you seen the movie: 23
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)
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Don't just use 3,5,7
use Fibonacci, use Pi, Use a dice, Use your ears, measure your digit section lengths and use that

using a set rule for a creative exercise is counter-productive in my opinion

[fidelium]

can you explain to me why you call it "3 5 7 method"?

[Valk]

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What the heck is up with your sig always showing my name?
does it show the user viewing it's name?
nice way to represent the illuminatos

[fidelium]

Originally Posted by Valk

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What the heck is up with your sig always showing my name?
does it show the user viewing it's name?
nice way to represent the illuminatos

sorry dude, Unregistered hacked my account and now I can't change my sig

[disftiva]

I thought it would be 6, 5, 4 or maybe 1, 7 ,6. Being in the key of G major or E minor. Confused myself!

[fidelium]

if it's the key of E minor, it would technically be 1-7-6, E minor, D major, C major. trying to figure out if i'm wrong somehow. didn't listen to example.

[disftiva]

Well, 3,5,7 would be the scale degrees for an E minor triad in the key of C major. That's the only thing that rings a bell with me...

[mnkvolcno]

Lol. Of all threads to resurrect.

Uhh. 1 3 5 7? wut?

This is just a super basic chord progression that is nothing spectacular. I would call it vi - V - IV in G major. You "can" always move between adjacent chords in a key, it's called planing. When you get to the IV, going back to the VI is nbd because triads a third a part (diatonic triads, meaning in the same key) always contain two notes in common.

My advice to people worrying about this stuff is to not worry about chord theory unless you are willing to put a lot of study (and hopefully some ear training) into it. Reason being is that I see A LOT of people severely limiting themselves because they are trying to go by theory rules.

The thing is, if you write songs by farting around on a keyboard, a guitar, and a sequencer, you will write stuff that would probably take three semesters of music theory to catch up to (it took me four to actually identify most of the techniques I was using).

You will probably get more mileage out of trying a new process. For instance, you might try step recording like 30 chords and then editing it heavily. You might be surprised with what you come up with.

[Lug]

I'm happy I'm not the only one who went "why the fuck would you call this a 3 5 7"

[vashima]

Yea... with the notes he mentioned I'm a bit off on finding out what the Arabic numerals of 3 5 7 have anything do to with. Those notes are sequential any ways, why is there a number getting skipped? If anything it could be vi, V, IV in G. Or i, VII, VI in Em natural. Any who... I'm done trying to figure out what this necrobpost was all about. Also! FiD! Dope signature my friend.

[Valk]

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lol

Sorry about that
I didn't notice it's a necromancy attempt by a banned user.

[vashima]

Haha, no worries dude. No need to apologize.