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Unexpected Minor Endings

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Date: September 6, 2022
Author: Beat Kitchen
Category: Songwriting

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OFFICE HOURS 2025-11-09
OFFICE HOURS 2025-11-09
WEEKLY 'BEAT' REVIEW 2025-11-10

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Here are three unexpected ways to end a song in a minor key. Play a major seventh over the minor. Go to the four chord.

Just make it major. And for more music production, follow Beat Kitchen and check out our upcoming classes.

Tags: musictheory, musicproduction

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Recent Resident Gyms
- OFFICE HOURS: Classical music, instrumental music forms, and exploration of writing music that is longer form, without vocals.
- INSTRUMENT-GYM: Fingerdrumming techniques- layering vs playing patterns in one pass, different layouts, techniques for double and single hits
- OFFICE HOURS: We went over Alee's cover of Material Girl and talked about ways to support our choices in our production. For everything that you do, there has to be at least one thing supporting it. She added some harmonies in the beginning that were great but changed the chord that she was playing over. So we talked about ways to make the harmonies work a little better with revoicing.
- INSTRUMENT-GYM: Guitar arpeggios- Major and minor 7ths with hammer on-pull off extensions, fingerpicking techniques, finding diatonic arpeggios in various positions for C major
- OFFICE HOURS: We talked about different DAW workflows, and talked about Reason, but also how workflows could shake up our creativity. We talked about Alex's new piano, and where to put it once he had moved, and we also discussed pre-pared piano possibilities.
- PRODUCTION-GYM: "Emergence" by Sleep Token.
- OFFICE HOURS: We discussed Tucker's latest song, and if he needed to add more. Alee shared an early version of a song she's working on and we talked about layering up the vocals, and creative directions and influences she might draw on.
- OFFICE HOURS: We talked a little bit about Paul's recent recording session at his friend's home studio, and Alex showed his new guitar, and we talked music for film/tv business and a little bit about the nuances of different local/regional music scenes.
- PRODUCTION-GYM: We broke down "Get Away" by The Internet - more specifically, we discussed how to take a single motif and expand it into a full production. We did this by focusing on a few instruments at a time and identifying where they are elsewhere in the track.
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- Office Hours: w/ Kallie
  Nov. 09: 1pm (PT) | 4pm (ET) | 9pm (UK)
- Office Hours: w/ Jon Mattox
  Nov. 09: 5pm (PT) | 8pm (ET) | 1am (UK)
- Weekly 'Beat' Review: w/ Nathan Rosenberg
  Nov. 10: 7am (PT) | 10am (ET) | 3pm (UK)
- Office Hours: w/ Cato Zane
  Nov. 10: 9am (PT) | 12pm (ET) | 5pm (UK)
- Instrument Gym: w/ Jon Mattox
  Nov. 10: 9pm (PT) | 12am (ET) | 5am (UK)
- Ear Training: w/ Jon Mattox
  Nov. 12: 8am (PT) | 11am (ET) | 4pm (UK)
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- 12/08: Musician Basics Elective
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Unexpected Minor Endings

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