4. Transposition in Music (Soundtrap)
Transposition
If we break the word apart we get
Trans (across) + posit (place) + tion (the action of) = the action of placing across.
In music the term means:
"Transposition or transposing in music means playing or writing music in a way that makes it sound higher or lower. This can be done by playing or writing the music in a different key, or by playing or writing it up or down an octave, without changing the key." -wikipedia
A problem many people have in Sountrap is making a chord progression that sounds right with their melody or creating a chord progression where you can use just the white notes of the piano (C Major or A minor).
Listen to the example:
How does the melody sound over this chord progression?
It sounds off because it is.
The melody is using the white notes of the keyboard and the chord progression is in Bb minor. If you hover over the chord progression, you can see the key:
We need to change the key so that it will work with the white notes of a keyboard (C Major).
Problem: this chord progression is in minor and we need to play in major.
Solution: Major and minor keys have relatives with the same notes (called "relative minor" or "relative major") and we can use them for this problem.
C major has the relative minor of Am.
We can change the chord progression to Am and it should work.
Steps:
1. Press "control" on the keyboard along with the mouse on the chord progression track and a menu will pop up:
2. Next, hover over "Transpose" to see a list of keys:
3. Select Am
4. Hover over the track to check to make sure it is in the correct key:
Listen to the results:
Now it sounds much better.
You can fix melodies that sound off in this way or prepare your chord progressions so that you can easily play over them using the bottom row of keys on your computer keyboard.
