Troubled by the following composing exercise

[senanserat]

I've been trying to learn more music theory in my on going search for the knowledge and skills that will allow me to compose my own music, I recently started reading a book about chords, melodic lines and the like.

In one of the very first exercises I got stumped, this is actually quite embarrassing because I'm sure the logic behind this all is very much obvious.



It says in the book that for a simple melody I should take one chord tone to put at the beginning of each beat and to limit my on-the-beat choices to either the Rt or 3rd. The scale is on G naturally because of the one #.

Then it puts as root tone E ... what the hell?
VI is C, which would make sense is the scale was in E to start with.
II is  A, when I was thinking I've made sense out of this the rug is pull under my feet.

Could someone please enlighten me on what is going on here? I really doubt the author is mistaken, I'm most likely to ignorant and dunderhead to grasp what is going on here...

Regards

[pianoplunker]

I've been trying to learn more music theory in my on going search for the knowledge and skills that will allow me to compose my own music, I recently started reading a book about chords, melodic lines and the like.

In one of the very first exercises I got stumped, this is actually quite embarrassing because I'm sure the logic behind this all is very much obvious.



It says in the book that for a simple melody I should take one chord tone to put at the beginning of each beat and to limit my on-the-beat choices to either the Rt or 3rd. The scale is on G naturally because of the one #.

Then it puts as root tone E ... what the hell?
VI is C, which would make sense is the scale was in E to start with.
II is  A, when I was thinking I've made sense out of this the rug is pull under my feet.

Could someone please enlighten me on what is going on here? I really doubt the author is mistaken, I'm most likely to ignorant and dunderhead to grasp what is going on here...

Regards

I dont see anywhere that C is VI as you describe. The scale is Gmajor to start with, and then modulates to Eminor scale which is the relative minor to the Gmajor scale. Every major scale has a relative minor scale starting on vi.  The relative minor scale also has its own dominant in this case B. IF you count from the vi you get E F# G A >B<  which resolves to Eminor especially if we make it a Bmajor chord by using D# as part of the construction as in this example. This B chord or note is the V to the root of vi which is Eminor. It is very common in music to modulate between the major and relative minor. What might be throwing you is you cant see the chords in this example or how the notes are passing through the chords. I think if you play the chords in your right hand while playing this melody, it will make more sense. The best thing you can do with theory is to memorize the scales and the chords in the scales as well as sub-dominant, dominant of each scale. So much music is based on I IV V might as well learn what that is in each key.   

[senanserat]

Thanks a lot for the explanation, I'll look into this with more calm tomorrow, today I almost had a fit I guess it doesn't help that english is not my main language and getting decent material is mine is very difficult. As for the C tone VI it says so on step one, second chord iv.

Perhaps I was paying too much attention to the big dot and not the little ones in the same chord.
Again thanks for the detailed explanation it makes way more sense now.

I'll also take heed to your advise even though learning each chord of every mayor, minor and relatives is going to take a while!

[nystul]

I think you may have simply overlooked the F (bass) clef at the beginning of the examples? 

[senanserat]

Oh my... you're right.

[pianoplunker]

Oh my... you're right.

That explains how C became a VI all of a sudden!  It is all part of learning, my friend.  All good.

[pianoplunker]

I'll also take heed to your advise even though learning each chord of every mayor, minor and relatives is going to take a while!

just take one key at a time. spend a week or more if you need. You could get it all in a year or even less

[senanserat]

That explains how C became a VI all of a sudden!  It is all part of learning, my friend.  All good.

Thanks, thought I feel a little silly. I'll try to keep calm next time haha