After producing for nearly 6 years and having released a few songs professionally I have never really taken the time to learn music theory. I could play grade 8 piano at 15 but I never took the time to learn theory as it never interested me. I've got far enough producing music via my piano knowledge - I know scales/chords basically (what to play and what not to play) and can use the internet to bypass any obsticles I face. So far my approach is "if it sounds good, keep it" and it's worked out.
I want to know how root notes work in the following context, I haven't been able to find something relevent so I've come here (yes I have tried the search function).
I've done plenty of remix's in my time and I've started to notice more about chord progressions and melodies and I want to know how the root note works. Do you have to start with the root note chord for it to be in that scale? I have a song with the progrssion Fmaj Cmaj Gmaj Am, the acapella is in Am and each note is in the Am scale and it sounds fine in my ears. But I've read somewhere along the lines that that isn't the Am scale but as far as I can see it uses the same notes as Am and the vocal sounds completely fine and in-tune.
A few songs I've noticed are in Fm for example but start on a different chord. Is there something that I am completely missing? What I am saying is can I write a song in Am and start in Fmaj? Or any other chords as long as the notes fit in the scale? Or does this change it completely. I can't find a scale that starts on F and only uses the white notes, but if you play an chromatic octave it sounds fine...
Submitted October 31, 2016 at 09:06AM by fourfortyeight https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/5abu53/root_notescale_struggles/?utm_source=ifttt