Chord rules progressions

[Wildpig]

Hi guys !
I´am not (yet) a user and saw some of the tutorial videos.
Could be a very useful tool for me but there´s one thing that´s really important for me:
These so called 'chord rules' I´ve seen don´t include the church modes (dorian to locrian), so that means
I cannot (auto) generate chord progressions and phrases based on these scales ?

Thank you !

[musicdevelopments]

Hi Wildpig!

I am afraid at the moment there are no rules for the church modes. I'll prepare them once I can find more info on them. I suspect mapping the chords from the major key (or from the minor key in case of Dorian/Phrygian/Aeolian) is not sufficient. But maybe it would work, I don't know. So right now you cannot generate progressions based on these scales.

Thanks,
Attila

[Wildpig]

Ah ok, thank you Attila !

[nexussynth]

Hi Wildpig!

I am afraid at the moment there are no rules for the church modes. I'll prepare them once I can find more info on them. I suspect mapping the chords from the major key (or from the minor key in case of Dorian/Phrygian/Aeolian) is not sufficient. But maybe it would work, I don't know. So right now you cannot generate progressions based on these scales.

Thanks,
Attila

I would love to see these added!!

[Dewdman42]

There are various books on amazon on the subject of modal harmony and modal counterpoint. I'm not sure which one would cover so called "church modes" the best, but what it really comes down to is that if you want a particular song to actually sound kind of dorian or sound kind of phrygian, then rules of harmony, voice leading and cadences will definitely be somewhat different between each mode, due to the location of the tritone in the scale, different for each one. Additionally, mixolydian and lydian modes can be very interesting to compose with as well, doesn't sound churchy, but still some of the same principles apply, each mode, if the music is being written to sound at its core in that mode, then there are voiceleading and cadential tendencies which would effect a chord progression ruleset, due to the location of the tritone and other things. There won't always be a strong leading tone, etc.

Modal interchange is also something I'd like to see RapidComposer be smarter about, which is not nearly as complicated as the church modes. This basically gets into borrowed chords from other modes, within the context of a major or minor based song. Each borrowed chord has a corresponding chordscale that matches it to help figure out add notes, etc. That is useful in pop, jazz, film and many other kinds of music....much more common then actually composing in a so called church mode. In this case the progression rules are much more straight forward, google around about modal interchange, there is a lot of information out there.

[Dewdman42]

There are various books on amazon on the subject of modal harmony and modal counterpoint. I'm not sure which one would cover so called "church modes" the best, but what it really comes down to is that if you want a particular song to actually sound kind of dorian or sound kind of phrygian, then rules of harmony, voice leading and cadences will definitely be somewhat different between each mode, due to the location of the tritone in the scale, different for each one. Additionally, mixolydian and lydian modes can be very interesting to compose with as well, doesn't sound churchy, but still some of the same principles apply, each mode, if the music is being written to sound at its core in that mode, then there are voiceleading and cadential tendencies which would effect a chord progression ruleset, due to the location of the tritone and other things. There won't always be a strong leading tone, etc.

Modal interchange is also something I'd like to see RapidComposer be smarter about, which is not nearly as complicated as the church modes. This basically gets into borrowed chords from other modes, within the context of a major or minor based song. Each borrowed chord has a corresponding chordscale that matches it to help figure out add notes, etc. That is useful in pop, jazz, film and many other kinds of music....much more common then actually composing in a so called church mode. In this case the progression rules are much more straight forward, google around about modal interchange, there is a lot of information out there.

[musicdevelopments]

Thanks, Dewdman42 for your comment.

I studied web pages about modal interchange, but I do not know how you as a composer want to interact with RC to insert borrowed chords.
I don't know where to insert it in the workflow.
Would you like to define a parallel scale in addition to the 'normal' scale to take borrowed chords from?
Do you want to insert a 'borrowed' chord to a specific chord, or do you expect the program offer you possibilities where a modal interchange could be inserted? Maybe add such chords in the chord rules?
So at the moment I am clueless but I am determined to add this feature.

Thanks!
Attila

[Dewdman42]

I am not yet a RC user yet, so I can offer only very limited suggestions based on what I can observe from videos and screenshots. but yes...that is how modal interchange works..they are parallel modes, with borrowable chords. For example you're in the key of C major, but you want to use Fm chord. There are several different C scale modes which can construct an Fm chord, with differences between those modes in terms of which add tension notes might also be included, are they sharp or flat, etc..

Lots of pop music and film music and other music uses borrowed chords and it should be easier to explore them in RC.

Typically modal interchange implies that the diatonic key center has not been lost, even though these non diatonic chords are being used, they are closely enough related that the progression can flow right back to the base major or minor scale and it never feels like a modulation. secondary dominants are similar in that regard except secondary dominants have very strong cadential undertones, while modal interchange chords tend to not be that way, they just add a lot of color and emotion to a chord progression, while still retaining the diatonic key center.

Some of them have become so commonplace that people don't even hear them at all as a departure from diatonic. For example, bVII. In the key of C Major that would be a Bb major chord. Its a borrowed chord. But we have heard so much rock music that uses the bVII-I progression that it sounds and feels completely diatonic to most people. bIII and bVI are also very common, minor iv and v also easily used. major II easily used with lydian modal interchange. Even bII can sometimes be used.

I would say at least include these common borrowed chords on your chord palletes, don't make the user change the key center in order to find them. They are so common place, they need to be readily available. Then you have to use under the covers the modal interchange math to figure out the tension add note variations that will make sense. For example if the song is currently key of C and a D major chord is being used via lydian modal interchange, then there are certain tension add note variations which are ok and some that are not due to disonant collisions, so provide the various tension variations as well based on modal interchange.

Another thing I've been getting into lately is neo-rienmann theory and tonnetz diagrams, which ultimately leads to chord progressions that include many borrowed chords as easily accessible by virtue of smooth voice leading with one and two common tones being the thing that makes it possible. But that method tends to be devoid of a tonal key center, which is sometimes exactly what you want, but that is not really what modal interchange is about, modal interchange provides a way to bring in borrowed chords without losing the tonal center. You can mix and match methods a bit too to float in and out of tonal key centers and to figure out tension add notes a bit, etc.

At the end of the day, in any given diatonic key, you can actually use nearly all 12 roots for chords, providing that you use an appropriate mode underneath to voice the chord quality (major, minor, etc) without leaving the key. These options need to be on your chord pallete, even if users don't realize they are using modal interchange when they select one of those borrowed chords.

[Dewdman42]

Here's an interesting paper you can see some film music examples of modal interchange.

https://www.academia.edu/9865115/Modal_ ... n_Williams

[Wildpig]

Hi Attila !,
one more question please:
If I put my own chord prog, let´s say dorian (Dm7, Cmaj7, G), can I force rc to generate phrases with just the notes included in each one of the chords independent from the scale set ?

[musicdevelopments]

Hi Wildpig,

yes, if the phrase includes only 'chord' notes, the master track chords will be used regardless of the scale set on the master track.

Some phrase generators make phrases containing both chord and scale notes, e.g. when notes are represented as "chord note+scale steps". In this case the master track scale is also used to calculate the note.

But you can set the scale to one of the church modes, and the chord palette (right click on the chord name) will show the scales for that mode.

Thanks,
Attila

[musicdevelopments]

One thing I forgot to mention, that there are scales with additional notes that can be used for borrowed chords. There is "Major Set", "Minor Set", "Major+Minor Set" and "Major+Minor Set Plus VI":



The arrangement is not optimal, all the chord palettes will be reworked in v3.3 with a new progression editor.

[Dewdman42]

Right so that provides SOME of the common borrowed chords. The ones borrowed from aeolian mode. There are other commonly borrowed chords from some of the other modes. bII major, II major, ii dim7; for example. There are more and particularly when you start talking about 9ths, 11ths and 13ths and various alterations, that's where some of the different modes provide subtle different borrowed chords.

at any given time you kind of need a single pallete that has major+minor+Dorian+phrygian+Lydian+mixolydian But most people aren't thinking about the modes that much, they are just looking for interesting chords. The various modes just provide alternative chord spellings and determine what you can use for 9ths, 11ths and 13ths and sometimes the ability to alter further some of the tones. I have a chart somewhere that has all 7 modes vertically and all 12 chords horizantally, and some of the chords are usable and some aren't. In some cases there are dissonant avoid notes that clash too much, etc... but you basically end up with one set of usable pleasing sounding chords that cover all 7 modes and all 12 semi tone roots.....without leaving the diatonic key center.

The interesting thing is that modal interchange is generally not about changing to a mode for very long. It's not like you're gonna write a section of the song in totally Dorian mode, for example. It's more that you borrow a chord or two from another mode, to bring in some emotional contrast and then get right back to where you were before.

I have lately been studying the equal interval system and that system actually uses 12 chord scales that pretty much can be used to create every conceivable borrowed chord including variations with 9ths, 11ths and 13ths and various alterations; which can include some fairly tense and dissonant yet musical chords. I'm still wrapping my head around it but similar as above, it's not that you change the song into a mode or scale. You still basically think chordally about stuff but the chord scales are used to spell the chords and passing tones for one chord at a time.

A lot of film music and 20th century music avoids tonal key centers. The progressions can advance by thirds and other things, yet still sounds smooth and musical and tonal, but not diatonic. Often times the composer is not thinking about it in their mind as a string of modulations from one key center to another but sometimes they are. But sometimes they are following interesting chord patterns like moving by thirds or whatever. Film music does this a lot.

Take the the Star Wars empire march for example. It goes from i minor to bVI minor back and forth. Sounds fantastic. modal interchange doesn't really even cover that one I don't think, but I'd have to think about it, it might. It's really a progression by thirds. but it finds its way back to the I minor key center.

Modal interchange is more about borrowing chords and staying in key, very useful for songwriters, however these color changes often can provide a film composer a lot of interesting ways to modulate to new keys too after introducing a colorful borrowed chord or can lead to progressions by thirds and other things.

[musicdevelopments]

Thank you for your insightful posts, Dewdman42!
This area is more exciting than I first thought.
What I am going to do is adding a new type of chord palette with all 7 modes and chords for all degrees.
(Is there any rule that helps to decide if a chord from another mode sounds bad? I suppose no.)
Also adding a tonnetz diagram is among the plans...
I am planning to rework the chord selection for v3.3

Thanks!
Attila

[Dewdman42]

Pm me and I can send you some stuff in email