What is Reddit's opinion of The Chord Wheel: The Ultimate Tool for All Musicians?

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The Chord Wheel: The Ultimate Tool for All Musicians (TOUS INSTRUMENT) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0634021427/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_RT1BHVCPP332SRMDSFEV

I hope I’m allowed to link things from Amazon here. Sorry If I’m not mods.

I think this is a really good book for entry level enharmonics theory

This is what you want. It works from the inside out, but it’s the same concept, plus it has key signatures. Personally I’ve always found chord wheels to be overly complicated, but I learned theory fairly young, and discovered these afterwards.

Edit: this one also has the advantage of rotating to highlight all the diatonic chords in that key.

If your local store doesn't have it. it can be found at amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Chord-Wheel-Ultimate-Tool-Musicians/dp/0634021427/ref=sr\_1\_1?crid=S94QIAIMIPQS&keywords=hal+leonard+chord+wheel&qid=1665879203&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIwLjAwIiwicXNhIjoiMC4wMCIsInFzcCI6IjAuMDAifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=hal+leo...

Well, a book could be written on it, but essentially it's only one page, one diagram as Luke says. It's simply a chart of the 12 keys, where each one has one more or less sharps or flats than the one next to it. That's why they are arranged in perfect 5ths (clockwise = perfect 4ths anticlocwise).

It so happens that there are other ways you can exploit it, especially by pretending the keys are chords, and then noticing that lots of chord progressions have root movements around the circle - in either direction, but traditionally anticlockwise.

One useful application (or adaptation) of it in that way is the chord wheel. Beware the "Ultimate Tool" exaggeration, but cheap enough to be fun to look at, at least. And you can probably make your own for nothing just by examining the cover.

Barre chords are just gonna sound bad for a bit, because they are extremely difficult in the beginning. Don't let that discourage you. Just keep practicing them, and soon enough you'll completely forget how difficult it was.

As for chord progressions, the first step is understanding which chords are in which key. That falls under some fairly basic music theory, though it still takes a bit of time to understand. To me, it helped a lot to have a resource like the Chord Wheel as a handy reminder, while I was learning the method behind the madness.

If you want something simple look at cover of this book. You can read to book if you want to know why/how the work together, but if you just need to know what chord choices would be a good next note the cover does it with a simple pinwheel. Amazon link

Ok - thanks for confirming. That kind of sounded like what you were saying so I just wanted to confirm.

Hopefully you have bought yourself a MIDI keyboard. If not I can give you some recommendations for it. Keyboard is the best way to learn music and how to compose music(in my opinion).

It will be overwhelming for a while. It takes time to get good or even competent at these things. Don’t feel bad that you’re stuff is not good at first. It is a slow process but it becomes very rewarding as you see the benefits of your work. Luckily for you there are many good resources on the internet.

One major thing that could help you is a chord wheel. This will help you easily determine what notes/chords are in a key which will allow you to easily explore different ideas as you find what works best:

https://www.amazon.com/Chord-Wheel-Ultimate-Tool-Musicians/dp/0634021427/ref=asc_df_0634021427_nodl?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312128059570&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14738533740901307887&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&a...

You don’t need major music theory knowledge but learning major and minor scales and major and minor chords is basically required knowledge. From there you can develop into more advanced ideas. Here is a good website with the resources:

https://www.musictheory.net/lessons

Additionally, Pentatonic Scales will show you the most important intervals and relationships in each scale. Some important notes:

Tonic/Root: 1st note in scale and the basis that everything resolves around

Dominant: 5th note in scale that will resolve well with the tonic/root

When I say resolve, what I mean is as you move away from these notes you will create tension - example 1st to 3rd / C to E will create tension. As you move towards these notes you will relieve tension - 3rd to 1st / C to E - sound like you are coming “home”.

In general, making music that sounds good relies on staying in “Key” which basically means that all the frequencies you are playing play nice with each other. As a new musician it is easiest to first work around creating tunes in C Major / A Minor because you can just mess with all the white keys and everything should sound “correct”. You can use the scale wheel to easily see all the notes in each key.

Next you will learn how to harmonize sounds so that varying instruments/sounds sound good together.

For example - take a chord progression - say… C major to F major to G major. As each of those chords play, the Bass could follow along nice and easily by playing C to F to G. You can then go ahead and grab a lead and really play any notes in that key and it will sound “good”.

It will take time, some studying, and a LOT of experimentation. There’s plenty of good resources on this sub and other Reddit’s but I would definitely take some time to focus on learning the basics of music. It will make your journey much easier.

You might want to pick up this

In a similar boat, I found a couple of things really helpful.

This helped me conceptualize chords as part of scales and families. The Chord Wheel: The Ultimate Tool for All Musicians https://www.amazon.com/dp/0634021427/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_G8RoFb8BH58CR

And this podcast episode really helped me figure out a way to learn and practice all the triads in all their inversions which is key to getting started.

Take this exercise through all 12 major and minor triads in all their inversions and you’re gonna be off to a great start. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jazzpianoskills/id1488489215?i=1000466026625

Now I’m learning all the 7th chords. Which is going well and going quickly because I gave myself the foundation of those triads.

Great video,

This tool is pretty cool for this,

The Chord Wheel

I used the Waay iOS app. Fantastic way to learn. Also buy a the chord wheel: The Chord Wheel: The Ultimate Tool for All Musicians https://www.amazon.com/dp/0634021427/

Remember the circle shows keys, not chords. It can (coincidentally) be adapted to represent chords in one key, but that's not its purpose.

For that purpose, you should use a circle which shows the relative minor keys on the inside - like this

Then the main six chords in one key are in one quarter segment of the circle: the IV-I-V clockwise on the outside, and the iii-vi-ii on the inside.

If you want the minor key, you obviously refer to the inner circle. So for A minor, you have Dm Am and Em (clockwise), with the majors (IV, III, VII) on the outside. The only adjustment you need to make (for a traditional minor key) is to use E major in place of Em.

This system omits the diminished chord, of course (vii in major, ii in minor), but that's very rarely used, at least in major keys. (iidim, iim7b5, is extremely common in jazz.)

Or - better still - use this device derived from the circle, but dedicated to creating chord sequences.

Nowhere near perfect pitch, heh, although I am using sites like http://www.earbeater.com/online-ear-training to help improve interval/scale/note identification.

I analyze using the written music in front of me. If it's an older video game piece, it's almost certainly available online in MIDI format. You can then use a program like Finale to look at the score.

If I'm not sure what a chord is, I can use https://www.scales-chords.com/chordid.php to help, or check my work.

Thanks for those links btw!

Edit: also, get https://www.amazon.com/Chord-Wheel-Ultimate-Tool-Musicians/dp/0634021427/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496074829&sr=8-1&keywords=chord+wheel or something similar if visualizing relationship between chords might help, it's been incredible for me.

Go pick up a microkorg or other tiny analog modelling synth. You can start to make your own patches, you can learn a couple triad chords, the vocoder is super fun, etc. You need to know how to play some songs. Don't listen to losers like deadmau5 when he says things like just draw in the chords and wait until it sounds right. He has a youtube ad for his "master class" and I can't stand when he says that he would play it if he know how to play. Learning to play basic triads is easy.

I can only speak from experience when I say these things. I wanted to be a huge electronic music guy. I wanted to be the next Daft Punk or Justice. Now everyone tells me I have my own unique style and I sound like David Bowie. People hated my stuff for years. I'm not super good at any instrument but I'm good enough now at guitar, bass, synth, and vocals.

Sometimes I might not work on music for a month or so. Last year I think I stopped for about 4 months and I was worried that I lost the drive. It came back with a fury. You're always better after a break as well.

You could even start a band. I'm not sure how well you know any instruments or not but it usually doesn't matter. Learn the basic structure for a song. You can do this by learning songs, or just by objectively listening to them. Most pop songs are going to be intro, verse, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus. Or something similar.

If you're super new, get this book. Then just pick a key and start playing the chors. https://www.amazon.ca/Chord-Wheel-Ultimate-Tool-Musicians/dp/0634021427/ref=sr_1_1?rps=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1491270719&sr=8-1&keywords=chord+wheel

You only hate it if you suck at it. I'm just gonna say it again, get an instrument or two and learn some songs. Just start pumping out tons of songs. Eventually you'll create your own style, it might not be EDM. Then go play them at an open mic or something. That shit is fun. Once you can start playing some gigs you'll thank yourself. Even playing for like 20 hipsters makes you feel like a rockstar, it's awesome.

If you can't sing, start singing to every damn song you hear. You're going to suck for a bit. I'm a bit of a silly guy sometimes so I would always change the words in the song while I sang them. That way it didn't matter that I sucked because it was still funny. Then one day I could sing haha it was pretty cool. Also, karaoke is sooooo fun. It's a great date idea.

You can literally be a super amazing musician and never touch a computer. If electronic music is really your thing, do it the old school way and buy some samplers. Like I said, once you become obsessive, there is no turning back. Music is fucking amazing and it never ends. You will be in your 70s-80s and pumping out songs.

WOOOOO GO FUCKING MAKE SOME NOISE

EDIT: I totally forgot. Make videos as well and then make your own music videos. Pump out a song and video every couple months. Do everything yourself. You will stay busy ahaha. I went and bought a couple green screens on amazon and some cheap lights and set up a litter studio in my apartment. Then I just started learning how to use everything and playing around in After Effects. Last week I taught myself how to use Cinema 4D and 3D modelling. Now I'm going to make hilarious cartoon videos in stereoscopic 3D making fun of feminism while I sounds like Bowie when I sing. It's all because I learned how to do everything. I've just started to find that the most enjoyable part for me is the process.

Also bass guitar. That is soo much fun to play. I don't even learn songs I just make up all this weird stuff and I absolutely love every second of it.

I have one of those Chord Wheel booklets which i refer to just about every darn day. About ten bucks at amazon (or your local guitar store). https://www.amazon.com/Chord-Wheel-Ultimate-Tool-Musicians/dp/0634021427

A little music theory can go a long way. You don't have to go completely nuts with it to learn a great deal. This helped me a lot with the basics of it all.