Question about melody voicing when using a borrowed chord

[jancivil]

Yet, composers actually study music, analyze it, get some historical perspective even, before they are composers.

We do sometimes see the rarest exception of say a Paul McCartney who would appear does everything 'by ear'. Who, guess what, needed someone with the technical acumen to get his oratorio together. And as Macca obtained his knowledge, the patterns and the conventions clicked; that is doing music theory, it's just not formalized.

"whats my pattern here?" is music theory d000000d.

If you're going to play bebop, you're going to want to know from ii-V-I in order to get the full chromatic out of songs, show tunes and pop tunes; which was the whole idea of it. The whole idea of it was based in music theory; go look up John Birks 'Dizzy' Gillespie and see it he was into theory or not. Flat five substitution theory, Db7b5 and G7b5 are both V of C hence interchangeable. What are you going to rely on, a chord book? If that stuff say from the Mickey Baker book or something CLICKED, you've done some music theory.

In my home town probably the best jazz guitarist at the time was a guy name of George Shaw. He didn't have time for all this, but he had this EAR. Again, that's exceedingly rare, it sure wasn't me. Most people are not going to know what to do in this context.

McCoy Tyner, planed mixed quartal. What is that? It's a break, conceptually; and this is informed/knowledge based.

[ChamMusic]

forget about theory and chord functions and all that shit. Just do scales and chords

??? Too deep for me! :0)

New to it? Yea only 1 way to fix that man... play your instrument

I compose in my head!

Dont try to look at your own shit b4 you pinch it off

Nooo...always do this...keeps you flexible as the years roll on! :0)
Just make sure you don't always bend the same way!

[Rajiv]

THIS, trying to convey it all thru mere words, is why I posted (initially I failed to out of haste or something) some music. In it, her harmonies are all triads. It's not dominant/tonic paradigm "tonality", it's doing E major to G major, for instance where E is home and she's either singing G# against the G or the other way 'round, I forget. Which is pretty much what the OP asks as far as I can tell. But before I KNOW that's the deal, I'd need to hear it.
But that's a folk song and not atonal, esoteric anything. I would not say dissonance for the sake of dissonance either.

Disclaimer -- My music theory is not so good, but I know what I like to hear.

This is a good song, absolutely ruined by the singer's decision in the verse. She's playing a fantastic sounding baritone guitar, shifting from a Bmaj to Dmaj. The melody starts with the 3rd of the Bmaj, but she holds that for a beat the Dmaj. Which sounds like crap. If she did it once, I'd get past it, but she does it many times. It's a terrible decision. And it clearly is a decision, not just singing out of tune (which is something I can forgive, since I do it all the time). There are plenty of places in the song where the melody is unexpected, but the surprise is always good. Not here.

If that was the melody she wanted, she should have held the Bmaj and shifted to the Dmaj for one beat. Or maybe found some other chord, or even just a bass note to play over that. Personally, I think it's a long time to hold the same note, even without the chord change underneath it.

The struggle is to find the right boundary between edgy and original vs. dissonant. To me, she missed the boundary, and while I appreciate this song, it will never make it on my playlist. I suspect if I listened to it many times, I would get used to it. As a younger person, I might have done this -- so maybe I'm just not the audience.

I wish I could help with the OP's question... I really can't. But I think that a good rule of thumb is that dissonance may limit your audience, so if you don't want people to fast forward through your song (which is what I did to get past the verse), make sure that sounding interesting doesn't ruin sounding good.

[jancivil]

Well, it works for me. I absolutely disagree with you.

But that's a valid observation on-topic, it's like I said initially, it could seem too strange and some have commented on the youtube she's incompetent.

She isn't, and if you understood who tf Tal Wilkenfeld is you'd likely think she did exactly what she wanted to do, she's really not 'you as a younger person'.

"make sure that sounding interesting doesn't ruin sounding good" - that's a point of view, subjective and opinionated. "edgy and original vs. dissonant" is revealing. You just told us <dissonant = wrong>. That's conservative. She'll do fine not bothered by that kind of sensibility.

But per the OP, maybe you want to play it real safe, & make sure no one objects to yer dissonance.

"voicing" is contextual and choices are down to taste, I couldn't advise.

[BertKoor]

But per the OP [...]

YoungCrocket last visited KVRAudio at Sat May 05 2018, and has since shifted his/her attention to omitting the 5th So all this talk is rather academical (which I know won't stop you in any way)

[Armagibbon]

Yet, composers actually study music, analyze it, get some historical perspective even, before they are composers.

We do sometimes see the rarest exception of say a Paul McCartney who would appear does everything 'by ear'. Who, guess what, needed someone with the technical acumen to get his oratorio together. And as Macca obtained his knowledge, the patterns and the conventions clicked; that is doing music theory, it's just not formalized.

"whats my pattern here?" is music theory d000000d.

If you're going to play bebop, you're going to want to know from ii-V-I in order to get the full chromatic out of songs, show tunes and pop tunes; which was the whole idea of it. The whole idea of it was based in music theory; go look up John Birks 'Dizzy' Gillespie and see it he was into theory or not. Flat five substitution theory, Db7b5 and G7b5 are both V of C hence interchangeable. What are you going to rely on, a chord book? If that stuff say from the Mickey Baker book or something CLICKED, you've done some music theory.

In my home town probably the best jazz guitarist at the time was a guy name of George Shaw. He didn't have time for all this, but he had this EAR. Again, that's exceedingly rare, it sure wasn't me. Most people are not going to know what to do in this context.

McCoy Tyner, planed mixed quartal. What is that? It's a break, conceptually; and this is informed/knowledge based.

I gotta ask... do you even play an instrument?
Cus all that theory shit is real f*ckin obvious if you transcribe at a piano and see where your hands fall. Do a real basic 2-5-1 in jazz. Whys that work? Cus you can hear it work. If you played at the keys you can even see it f*ckin work and see anywhere else you can go and analysis aint even part of that. So yea you know what theory is? Its a f*ckin crutch for wack composers.

New cats always do better to learn the scales and chords and how to transcribe. Then the whole world is open to them and they can do parallel 5ths and minor 9th leaps all they f*ckin want cus they heard it work and play it and know when it works without thinkin it. All that other shit like quartal harmony and functional whatever is academic jackoff. Books aint got shit on albums.

[ChamMusic]

but I know what I like to hear.

Fair enough and you don't like this particular dissonance. I won't argue that in a Western Modern Popular Music context, it is unusual and, maybe, a little harsh for some tastes....NOTHING wrong with that at all.

The melody starts with the 3rd of the Bmaj, but she holds that for a beat the Dmaj. Which sounds like crap

Not to me it doesn't...and that is also perfectly OK.

If that was the melody she wanted, she should have held the Bmaj and shifted to the Dmaj for one beat.

No she shouldn't...it was a definite, deliberate creative choice on her part and that is also 100% fine... whatever others may think about that choice.

The struggle is to find the right boundary between edgy and original vs. dissonant.

I wish the words consonant and dissonant would cease to exist in a musical sense as they are abused so often; I don't think anyone understands them properly at all.This might explain my own pet peeve on the subject:
https://marktaylorchameleonmusic.wordpr ... -in-music/


This is technically / theoretically (controversial to some) a dissonance:
C E G Bb....hardly edgy or original! :0)

New cats always do better to learn the scales and chords and how to transcribe.

Hmmm...sounds like there's a bit of music theory in there.

music theory...Its a f*ckin crutch for wack composers.

Mozart, Vivaldi, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, John Mayer, Annie Lennox, Keith Emerson.......................and on and on..........

When he died, Hendrix was taking music theory lessons from Miles Davis because he felt that he needed it to develop even further:

"I dig Strauss and Wagner, those cats are good, and I think they are going to form the background of my music. Floating in the sky above it will be the blues – I've still got plenty of blues."

All that other shit like quartal harmony and functional whatever is academic jackoff. Books aint got shit on albums.

Nope, sorry, you're wrong...

'Books' are very useful.

'Albums' are very useful.

Now, books and albums....very, very useful and much more rounded in terms of options available...learning rules doesn't mean you have to obey them necessarily!

[jancivil]