It must be fun composing totally freely by playing. I for myself need the limitation of scales or modes. For some years I have made several pieces of music in all modes. The great thing about using different scales and keys is indeed the new ideas and melodies they give you.
I generally set boundaries when i write too. It's just that i don't always know what they are at first. It sounds like you've done a good bit of exploring too. Choosing an unfamiliar scale is perfectly good approach. I intend to do something like that for some up coming projects.
Will try and put all those music theory videos in a box and use my ears instead. Sting’s Lexicon reverb rack unit was on eBay a while back. He purposely had masked off all the numbers on the dials….
I wasn't able to write music until I left the cliches of the major key and functional harmony behind - I might be unpopular in saying this but I think the major key sounds inherently wrong to me for most pieces of music (I guess some great composers get around it by using a lot of chromatism). For me, using modes and starting to modal chord progressions and counterpoint without relying on the I-IV-V functional nonsense was essential. Then I discovered the tonnetz and didn't worry about keys anymore.
It must be fun composing totally freely by playing. I for myself need the limitation of scales or modes. For some years I have made several pieces of music in all modes. The great thing about using different scales and keys is indeed the new ideas and melodies they give you.
I generally set boundaries when i write too. It's just that i don't always know what they are at first. It sounds like you've done a good bit of exploring too. Choosing an unfamiliar scale is perfectly good approach. I intend to do something like that for some up coming projects.
Will try and put all those music theory videos in a box and use my ears instead. Sting’s Lexicon reverb rack unit was on eBay a while back. He purposely had masked off all the numbers on the dials….
Ears are always best, even if the result only mean something to you. What's the connection with sting's reverb?
I wasn't able to write music until I left the cliches of the major key and functional harmony behind - I might be unpopular in saying this but I think the major key sounds inherently wrong to me for most pieces of music (I guess some great composers get around it by using a lot of chromatism). For me, using modes and starting to modal chord progressions and counterpoint without relying on the I-IV-V functional nonsense was essential. Then I discovered the tonnetz and didn't worry about keys anymore.
Yes, I essentially agree. Thanks for mentioning "tonnetz", it seems to align pretty well with my point of view.