Scales & Chords: Capture Ideas, Discover New Ones!

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Reason's Players have the power to change the way you make music, helping you work faster, smarter, and imagine more than you once could. If you're new to music theory or a begrudging keyboard player in the age of MIDI controllers, you'll love Scales & Chords for its ability to assist you in the real task: realizing your musical vision, and maybe even exploring new things you didn't think were possible.

In this tutorial we'll walk through the fairly simple controls that make Scales & Chords work but then dive into the beautifully complex music you can make with it by building up a song together. If you think you might want Scales & Chords in your music, you should check this out. However, if you think you don't need Scales & Chords because you already know music theory then you REALLY have to check this out!

#ReasonPlayers #Reason #ReasonStudios

[LelandLavinci]

Just like nobody is going to really care about what DAW you use to make music (whether it be Reason, FL Studio, Ableton, Logic or w/e) nobody is going to take the time to wonder if you "cheated" to create great sounding chords. If it sounds good, so what. You make music to create. Not critique. If we're pointing fingers and saying people are cheating then the same can be said about all of us who use DAWs and never made anything with all hardware like they did back then. Not cheating. Just simple, fun and intuitive.

[saradamsmc]

I went to a classical music school and know theory yet this allows me to make up harmonies on the go without paying that much attention which is great for when you're running around a lot

[juicerox]

I'd watch any Reason related video with this guy's voice on it. He is the sound of Reason for me personally.

[agentred]

As someone brand new to Reason (I bought it TODAY!), I must thank you for such a clear, concise and well-presented tutorial. I hope that all of your tutorials are just as excellent. Cheers!

[soviut]

The players, especially Scales & Chords, has been a major source of inspiration for me. It's sped up the time it takes to lay down beds for my melodies and given me the option to invert and spread on the fly without having to drag dozens of notes around. I'm really keen to see what kinds of crazy stuff people start doing with automation on top of this.

[StbilityMusic]

Actually, you could use two lines from Taylor's song to describe this device:
Player's gonna play, play, play, play, play
and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate

Seriously, I've seen a lot of hate from people because this device supposedly makes composing "too easy." However, you're still gonna need to know at least the basics of Music Theory to know how it works. After all, this thing will be mostly useless to someone who doesn't know what "E Minor" or "F Major" means.
Even then, this thing isn't gonna make you the next Varien or K-391. Despite having the assistance of this device, building complex melodies and chord progressions takes a metric ton of experience. Ryan makes it look easy here, but trust me: it's not. You can't just make a melody by mashing your keyboard.

[BobbyWashingtonVlog]

I can actually play chords but this is amazing... Most time it takes me 10-15 minutes to create an original chord progression from my head but I can see using this alot to give me a different approach to creating... This will be like have a second producer on my albums we with me...

[ZKDanika]

Scales and chords actually helps me explore very complex arp progressions that would be impossible to play by hand.

[SynepticMusicccc]

Lmao all the salty people in here.... You know you don't HAVE to use the new features, right?

[torbenhellborn]

Thanks for a very clear and most versatile demo - and a MERRY new year

[ProckGnosis]

It's a decent idea to help folks produce music, but people should try to learn past this tool as well. Some of my coolest chord changes came about from less-than-perfectly played chords and bum notes. With this gadget and "instant correction" I never would have played the "bum notes" and discovered some really interesting progressions.

[hawko]

Good job with this player lads, don't listen to all the negativity below, making something easier is always favorable!

[danielkushner]

I love this. I'm a bass player. I know theory. But my piano playing skills are not so hot.

[ballroomcollective]

You have done it again Propellerhead! Can't wait to get into these new features :) Now just some more features for live stuff such as triggers or visual additions or maybe even your own midi keybaord integrated with reason and it will be all-time.

[gordonfrew]

Wow this is good for someone who stopped making music for around 15 years. Just getting back into it while even knowing a wee bit about music theory. I'm rusty as hell and really struggling to write chords and progressions this hopefully might end my writers block.

[dannygibor]

This is a very cool demo. The features listed above should be used as a rough guideline for creating new music. However, if you're serious about creating music, you should learn the theory behind it and then you can play outside the scale and add all kind of notes that normally don't harmonize well with your selected scale / pitch and whatever. These accidentals are what makes music beautiful (to me) and not just following common misconceptions about music. For example, when choosing C minor (Cm) as your tonality, adding a B natural (not flat) could add some unexpected tension to your music. Same goes for all kind of chromatic harmonies that add interesting passages from one chord to another. For example (still in Cm): Fm - F#dim7 - G.
When it comes to making music, you need to know your basics in order to create truly amazing stuff. However, if you don't know much about theory or can't master the piano, Reason looks like a great tool to get started and experiment.

[arnjohnsonmusic]

I've been around for a while. Back when synths and drum machines started to get hot in the 80's and 90's in mainstream, a lot of people said that they were cheating in terms of music creation. Here's the thing: people want to still hear real instruments, real performances and real musicians by-and-large. Guitars, acoustic instruments, real drums and real songwriting has not "died". Synths did not "eliminate" that kind of music. While a lot of synth pop is crap and one could make the argument that tools like this are to blame (at times), I feel for the (banging out something on an instrument) who have great ideas in their heads. I would argue that there will be better music in the world, overall, because those people will now have a chance to materialize what they're feeling in their heads. Will there be more crap too? Yes. But it will filter to the bottom, IMHO.

[doodoostickstain]

I see everyone complaining that software writes the music for you...I really don't see how if you're the one putting all the notes together. i mean, if you don't know what you're doing in the first place, never having disciplined yourself musically, you're REALLY not going to produce anything good. it took me years to learn to use a DAW effectively, and I'm still learning. I go back and listen to some older stuff and cringe haha ^_^ same as any musician (yes, I am a musician. I study music, I play instruments, both electronic and traditional, and they're two sides of a coin)

[chanukabulathsinghala]

Honesty this player made me to come back to Reason again and use it as my main DAW. I moved from reason to FL Studio. These new additions are so cool in Reason 9. But still I miss those VST instruments like nexus and massive

[johnnyuk]

Reason 9.5 is amazing! I absolutely love it!