Sound itself conveys a mood. If you pay attention to it, you will see (hear) that, before there is even a melody or a sense of progression, even the simplest case of having a continuously playing 'sound' of 2~3 notes put together might sound happy, or sad, or scary/awkward/menacing. Or something else entirely. Whichever it's going to be is governed by the frequency ratios (intervals) between those notes comprising the 'sound'. This is known as playing chords.
Similarly, the overall sound 'feel' itself of pop music is different from that of jazz/blues, which is different from Japanese or Arabic national music, and so on. This is because these genres use different underlying subsets of relative pitches, aka scales.
The traditional musical notation is a way of writing things down that preserves this tonal relationship as well as the rhythmic patterns visually. For instance, a drummer learns to see the musical sheet broadly in terms of 'known figures', akin to hieroglyphs. So as a general rule, rather than the question of 'what to play' it becomes more a question of 'how to play it' (same figures might be used in louder/softer passages, include rolls and so on). I can't say how well it relates to the idea of hearing yourself in advance literally, I think it's not quite the same and is more a mental sort of thing, but either way we normally have an idea of what to do, and/or what it's going to be, because that is sort of the whole point after all.
The same naturally holds true for tonal instruments as well. Here, the vertical positioning becomes just as, if not more important. The same sequence of notes in a melody, whether they're played together as a chord, or follow each other, appears as a kind of 'pattern' which looks the same spatially. You can take the whole thing 'higher' or 'lower', which is called transposition, and you will find it sounds somehow different (e.g. it begins from a higher note, and overall it sounds kinda higher in pitch) - but at the same time it is also the exact same melody. This is because the intervals (frequency ratios) of those notes remain the same.
Now as you probably know, there are two very different types of music editor interfaces.
The type of music editor known as the piano roll is similar to the traditional music notation in the way it reflects these tonal relationships visually. The same melody is going to have the same 'visual shape' no matter where you put it. You can do things like for instance picking one or two individual notes within a chord and moving them up/down the scale, resulting in another type of chord, and this is reflected in the visual representation in a way that is easy to understand and identify.
On the other hand, you have the 'tracker' type of interface. The origin of this is entirely different, it's perhaps appropriate to say it is the 'MIDI-keyboard-less, musically inclined
programmer demoscene coder's interface'. The primary advantage here is that it enables blazingly fast editing using just the basic keyboard and mouse (if you know what you're doing). However, the price for this is losing the aforementioned visual representation of tonal relationships that is characteristic of the piano roll interface. The rhythmic arrangement of things is preserved by and large, and it is still easy to see for instance what your drum pattern is, but the notes themselves are represented as 'A-4', 'C-5' and so on.
Personally, I must admit I hate the piano roll interface with a passion lol. Simply put, it's not what I grew up with, I find it awkward to work with and am just overall uncomfortable with it. Nevertheless, I think this is the right choice for someone making their first steps in music. - Unfortunately, most 'reasonable' native or crossplatform music editors for the Speccy are of the tracker type.
Regardless, it should be possible to get started with a tracker as well. Download Beepola and try out one of the simpler, classic music engines, like Wham! or Music Studio, without any fancy-schmancy envelopes or duty cycle controls or whatnot. Just your basic notes and maybe a few percussion sounds. Gradually move on to something like Special FX with more complex sound. Then Phaser/Tritone, then Savage, until a while later when you are prepared for the ultimate in business, Utz's engines.
For the AY side of things. I think there are several simpler AY trackers in existence, like WYZ, which may or may not represent the appropriate next step. However, mainstream AY trackers like Vortex typically tend to be fairly complex creations with quite a few specific concepts, like ornaments or the hardware envelope, that might be difficult to understand for a beginner.
Another way is to look past all that and begin with one of the modern music editors/DAWs instead. I can assure you they will appear intimidating at first due to all the knobs/meters going on and whatnot. However, ultimately these tend to be MUCH more comfortable to work with that their Speccy oriented brethern, and once you have acquired a hang of it, as well as a song going on, it is typically not too much of a problem to rewrite history and 'downscale' it then for the Speccy. As well, you will be learning to write real music, using a real musical application, not a niche one *gets coat (tm)*, which might just end up having a broader reach than your Speccy interests alone and so on, who knows. x) Another advantage here is of course the fact that these are predominantly piano roll-based.
Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Sat Jan 13, 2018 12:37 pm
I don’t think having extensive knowledge of music theory is necessary for creating a catchy game tune. If you have any taste in music, it alone will suffice.
<...>
Forget about music theory, “creative process,” “getting your ideas from somewhere,” or “looking inside your head.”
Well, why not have both?
Music theory is not some sort of a dogmatic rulebook that states in absolute terms, 'you shall do things This One Way lest you fail' people sometimes think it is. Rather, it is akin to a series of observations. 'If you put together X and Y, it will produce the effect of Z'. 'If your progression is from X to Y, it naturally leans to a resolution in Z'. It doesn't state anything more than that. It doesn't say doing the complete opposite is somehow incorrect, either. You can simply refer to some of these concepts as a source of inspiration, for something you haven't thought of that someone else have. Above all, you can normally try it all for yourself and decide if you agree with what it says - because after all, you can hear the result. And if you find that you don't agree with something it says, and/or you have a specific reason not to follow it, then you're free to not follow it. I think it's entirely worth learning some of that language.
On that note, I entirely recommend everyone to watch
this channel. Michael's explanations about these concepts are the easiest to follow from anything I've seen, and they make full sense. (I'm also learning a lot from this).
Ralf wrote: ↑Sat Jan 13, 2018 1:10 pm
And the last thing. Several times I met with opinions that skill of making music is something that can't be learnt. That you either are born with it and don't need any explanations then or you don't have it and no explanations will help you. True or not?
Complete bs.
(Gah, the youtube bombardment from above is killing my poor laptop here)