THE BIG "MONEY BEAT" DEBATE! Love it or hate it?

Fantastic passage. I couldn't agree more with this. I don't fully understand where your anger (in the rest of the post) came from though, since this thread has been quite respectfull but maybe it's because I have avoided all the threads with a "vs" in the title in order to keep my heart pressure under control. ;)

Swiss Matthias: Nice playing man. Really.

Hey Rick,
I like your playing and I like your band. Its cool that you write some of the horn parts for your band and some of the music. I do the same for mine. We're adding more and more original stuff. We just got hired to do a big blues show but we had to add a horn section so I wrote up the horn parts. I love doing that, almost as much as I love playing drums.

I'm not really angry but sometimes my writing can come off that way. I am passionate about the subject.
 
Hey Rick,
I like your playing and I like your band. Its cool that you write some of the horn parts for your band and some of the music. I do the same for mine. We're adding more and more original stuff. We just got hired to do a big blues show but we had to add a horn section so I wrote up the horn parts. I love doing that, almost as much as I love playing drums.

I'm not really angry but sometimes my writing can come off that way. I am passionate about the subject.

Yes man... writing and arranging stuff is a lot of fun. Especially if you sat behind your computer for hours (I arrange everything using Sibelius and a midi-keyboard) and hours with crappy midi-sounds and then go to a rehearsal and hear the stuff you wrote played live.... amazing feeling.

We've just added a trombone to our section and now have two Alto Saxophones, Tenor Sax, Trumpet and Trombone - great section to write for. You have all the freedom you want for slash-chords, drop voicings and all that stuff. It also earns you a lot of respect from all the other musicians, if you come up with some nice arrangements as a drummer. Nobody really expects that from you...


Anyway - like I said: I try to keep out of trouble for the most part on this board (compared to past days) and it has done wonders for my heart-pressure...

;)

Cheers everybody!
 
I have to say writing is one of the most enjoyable things I do musically. For whatever reason, I find myself writing and playing very simple drum parts. The neatest things I have found about writing are:
1) Bringing it to rehearsal like you said. Maybe the singer changes the phrasing or the melody just slightly. Maybe the guitar isn't quite how you imagined etc. If you give people the freedom to change their parts as needed, you end up with a much better song, provided you are playing with talent.
2) When you finally perform the song live and people in the audience go nuts, even if it is the first time they have heard the song. We typically don't announce who wrote what, we just get up there and play it. Most of the covers we do are more obscure, so a lot of the audience doesn't know any of the music anyway. If they go nuts, and you didn't tell them you wrote it, it seems like a much more genuine reaction.

And like you said, if you, the drummer, are writing songs complete with fully fleshed out horn parts with counterpoint, polyrhythms and all kinds of other juicy treats, you get a LOT more respect.
 
I have to say writing is one of the most enjoyable things I do musically. For whatever reason, I find myself writing and playing very simple drum parts. The neatest things I have found about writing are:
1) Bringing it to rehearsal like you said. Maybe the singer changes the phrasing or the melody just slightly. Maybe the guitar isn't quite how you imagined etc. If you give people the freedom to change their parts as needed, you end up with a much better song, provided you are playing with talent.
2) When you finally perform the song live and people in the audience go nuts, even if it is the first time they have heard the song. We typically don't announce who wrote what, we just get up there and play it. Most of the covers we do are more obscure, so a lot of the audience doesn't know any of the music anyway. If they go nuts, and you didn't tell them you wrote it, it seems like a much more genuine reaction.

And like you said, if you, the drummer, are writing songs complete with fully fleshed out horn parts with counterpoint, polyrhythms and all kinds of other juicy treats, you get a LOT more respect.


Do you ever have to tell the guitar player to just play the 'money chord'? hehe
 
Do you ever have to tell the guitar player to just play the 'money chord'? hehe

No. I wouldn't play with a guitarist who would let me tell him to play the 'money chord'. That would have to be E5 G5 A5 C5 and D5. I specify chords but I don't specify voicings and if the guitarist has something that sounds better then he plays that. I respect the talents and voices of others. Most of the time if you just get out of their way they will perform wonders.
 
That would have to be E5 G5 A5 C5 and D5.
Are you sure that would be a money chord progression? What key would that be? E minor, with no thirds at all?
To me the ultimate money chords are C, F, G and C (or I, IV, V, I in whatever key). And depending on the style with or without thirds ;).

Yeah, composing and arranging is a great emancipation tool for a drummer :). I like to do so on the piano, and sometimes also accompany myself (by recording of course) with bass guitar and drums.
 
Are you sure that would be a money chord progression? What key would that be? E minor, with no thirds at all?
To me the ultimate money chords are C, F, G and C (or I, IV, V, I in whatever key). And depending on the style with or without thirds ;).

Yeah, composing and arranging is a great emancipation tool for a drummer :). I like to do so on the piano, and sometimes also accompany myself (by recording of course) with bass guitar and drums.

Hey,
Those are money chords, not a money progression, so there is no key signature. If I were to say play a money progression it would be a simple I, IV, V, I, as you correctly suggest. :p

Man you gotta hook into a program called Reason. It allows you to play ALL of the instruments and put them into a recording etc. You can use another program to make sheet music for all the parts. Anyway, glad to see another drummer writing! Take care.
 
Fair enough :). I just put the chords into relation to each other automatically...

I've heard about Reason, but I don't know it. I'm not too good with all the audio software, I only use Sibelius, and GarageBand...ehem.... but maybe it's worth checking out then?

It opens up whole new worlds. There are all kinds of tutorials on youtube on how to use it etc. Its the photoshop of music.
 
No. I wouldn't play with a guitarist who would let me tell him to play the 'money chord'. That would have to be E5 G5 A5 C5 and D5.

Never heard of that one. What's an E5 chord? What's a "5" chord? I know what a V chord is, but a "G5?"
 
5 chords are a triad made up of; root, fith and an octave otherwise known as the 'power chord'.

They're rather stark sounding chords and I don't really use them at all in my writing but they're great as a starting point when writing.

Kev

Ah, I see. That makes sense, it's a rock "chord." So if you want a G chord (G B D) you'd just write G, but if you want a G "power chord" you'd write G5, correct?
 
Ah, I see. That makes sense, it's a rock "chord." So if you want a G chord (G B D) you'd just write G, but if you want a G "power chord" you'd write G5, correct?

Correct, if you wrote just "G" it'd be a G Major; root, maj 3rd, perfect fith. If you wrote "G5" then it'd be; root, perfect fith, octave; they're two completley different chords.

5/power chords are what's known as 'ambiguous' chords because they're tonally netural; neither major or minor and that's because there is no 3rd in the chord.

Kev
 
Correct, if you wrote just "G" it'd be a G Major; root, maj 3rd, perfect fith. If you wrote "G5" then it'd be; root, perfect fith, octave; they're two completley different chords.

5/power chords are what's known as 'ambiguous' chords because they're tonally netural; neither major or minor and that's because there is no 3rd in the chord.

Kev

My teachers at the music school I went to would be most indignant about the concept of a 5 chord. But it's cool how the terminology adapts to new situations.

When I was studying music there just wasn't any such thing as a 5 chord.

Open voicings or "shell" voicings of, say, a 7#9 chord are also ambiguous when used in a non-functional harmony situation. Very "jazzy."
 
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