Consistent mood throughout a song?

[Count_fuzzball]

Is it a lack of compositional skills, if I can't figure out chords that make a song sound sombre, sad and serious?

I'm here attempting to compose something on piano, just to see if I can do it with a set mood.

[ivory1029]

Not necessarily a lack of skills! If I'm improvising on piano, let's say, I would want to start with a slow tempo, and maybe just play one chord or two over and over, or a series of chords against a pedal bass holding the same note. You might want to try all white keys until you get a progression you like, and you can transpose if need be; when I do that, it helps me stay in more of a modal frame of mind instead of thinking major or minor. That produces some cool progressions which may fit your desires. Above all, don't over think it...just let your fingers move around and see what happens, keeping some of those suggestions in mind. Hope that helps!

ivory1029

[jplanet]

Think of a few tunes that have the somber feeling you're going for, and learn those chords as a starting point, and add those chords to your compositional vocabulary. If that's too much, you can at least start with any minor chord, and try descending from that...

[Sixofour]

Use G Sharp Minor scale [aka "Double F Sharp"]. That will net you some sad chordal progressions.



Red keys are the scale, blue is optional in certain situations. Btw that is an Arpeggio i made, forgot which song its in though.

edit: ah arp is from "Can you feel it?"