Composing via chord progression

[psenior]

now these chords are really nice, great deep feel and good for soul music, what i want to know is using these chords are you staying in a particular key?

Yes, I am staying in the key of E minor. I am mixing my minors a little bit, like I mentioned to you before. For example, the B7b9#5 suggests E melodic minor.

or are you changing key, as someone on here mentioned before, you can compose a track using what ever chords you want, but wouldnt you want to stay in a particular key ?

Staying in one key the whole time would sound the most consonant, but it also might sound too repetitive. For this style of music, it would probably be more authentic to go to other keys at least a little bit. Especially in the bridge, if the song has one.

would you base a new chord progression on a scale and key ?
im just trying to understand the relationship between chords

I might. Generally I trust my ears first and work out the theory part later so I can write down what I played so I won't forget it. Even then I don't care too much about the Roman numerals. I just think tonic and dominant.

[leighbeynon]

i think this is where my musical knowlege gap is, i know tonic is root,
dominant i know this chord based on the 5th degree of the scale,

but i wouldnt know how to create a chord progression within a key, without
alot of double checking what chords are in which scale,

more years of practise for me i think!

[wrench45us]

I would suggest one (or more) of the Rikky Rooksby books (guitar or keyboard ... somgwriters) as a very painless place to start.
He covers the basics of songwriting using chords (as most guitar strummers do) and the basic chord progressions -- how they work, why they work -- and turnarounds and some off-the-beaten track choices (where he has a real appreciation)
it's a good place to start and builds a nice foundation for more advanced harmony/jazz theory, but never gets in the way of actually doing music as you learn. There's no reason to stop creating while you go off and learn this or that.

[leighbeynon]

Let's say you know a vocal is in a key and your using the chords within this key for some thing different like a bridge would you change key? How do you know what other chords work ?I know you trust your ears but I would need a starting point ,let's say I'm playing fmin and b flat min where could I move to so I have some variation?

[leighbeynon]

anyone buller? buller

[psenior]

My opinion; a brigde should sound somewhat distinctly different from the rest of the song. Fm to Bbm is i-iv in Fm. You could and should go to another key. You could go to the relative major, Ab, but that might not sound different enough. You could go to the parallel major, F. That would sound different enough.

You can do whatever you want if you are clever. The starting point is your creativity. Just play around, move your hands, don't think about it. If what you played sounds bad, play something else. If what you played sounds good, keep playing until you get stuck. Then you can start analyzing.

Try using brute force. From your original progression, go to every major and minor key and take note of which ones you do and don't like. Don't worry about why they sound good or bad for now. This will take some time but will be very educational. Later you can figure out the "why's and how's."

If there is a vocal melody for your bridge, that will be the main thing which will determine what keys and harmonies sound good or bad. If you figure out what key the bridge's vocal melody is in, that will give you your biggest clue as to where you should go.

[leighbeynon]

I see what yor saying, all i know is the vocal is in fm, doesnt sound like the bridge changes key, but then my ears arent trained to determine key,

does sound like a change would work, but might have to be something that works with fm, or a relative key.

i think with all this stuff neo soul, soulful house ,i need a nice starting point of where i can compose from and then learn each time i try something new,

i know you can play pretty much any chord in a progression, but seems like this style uses alot of 9ths 7ths etc and mainly extended chords.

i think i keep getting caught up in key and not wanting to move to chords from different keys, this is why i always refer back to the roman numeral system

[NevilleLeck]

the dm9 would strictly be Ddom79 but all sorts of things can be done to the dominant of the major key

[tapper mike]

Soul isn't about delivering as many chords as you can or making everything exactly fit. Soul is message music. If he message is buried in the arrangement then it's lost. Most soul music don't have major 6 sounds running thru it. Dominant and minor 7 sounds.

There is a very simple theory called Dissonance and Connosence. or Conflict and Resolution. Where by you juxtaposition chord or melody tones that have a dissonant quality to resolve them later. This is stock and trade for blues and jazz blues players. Rather then change the melodic structure to accommodate the chord change they retain the same melodic note value and create dissonance then resolve on the turn around or not.

[leighbeynon]

Dissonance and Connosence eh, interesting, ill look into this,
im having piano lessons but i dont think im any where close where i want to be in regard to creating my own chord progressions, i would love to study this more at college or something but i dont have the time at all,

so i have to gain what knowledge i can from the web, as some aspects im interested in my piano teacher doesnt understand or doesnt think is important for me, he hates the circle of 5ths for example and doesnt see the need for it,

so thanks for the info ill google this and read up this

[wrench45us]

I have friends who had piano teachers who taught technique and specific pieces of music and never taught any theory. 30 years later those people can sight read a piece or play something they've memorized, but can't play from a lead sheet or don't have a clue how to improvise or compose.

So it depends what kind of piano teacher you want and what kind of piano player you want to be.

[psenior]

the dm9 would strictly be Ddom79 but all sorts of things can be done to the dominant of the major key

Yes, a dominant on the D would be fine. Lately, I have been playing this progression with a Dmaj9. When you play it that way, it ends up sounding like "Golden" by Jill Scott.

[Nystul]

I have friends who had piano teachers who taught technique and specific pieces of music and never taught any theory. 30 years later those people can sight read a piece or play something they've memorized, but can't play from a lead sheet or don't have a clue how to improvise or compose.

So it depends what kind of piano teacher you want and what kind of piano player you want to be.

That is very true. I think having solid technique, being able to sight read well, being able to interpret and convey emotion are extremely useful for any type of music. But classical piano instruction is heavily focused on these areas. When you want to improvise, compose, play by ear, create your own accompaniments on the spot, etc. those classical skills will help, but other methods must be learned as well.

[seacouch]

One approach to harmonizing a melody is determining what scales contain (or come close to containing) the melody, and then using those scales to derive chords (this is basically how "modal interchange" works). So in your case, the question is; what scales contain the G Maj pentatonic? Just sticking with Major scales: G Major, C Major and D Major all contain the G Major pentatonic. D melodic minor contains the G Major pentatonic. You can also look at places in your melody where you can alter certain notes in your "base scale", giving you many more options for your "containing scales", which in turn gives you a much wider selection of derived chords. You can discover a lot of interesting colors this way.

[MOK19]

Since this thread is still around somehow, I wanna say thanks, psenior, and other thread contributors, for the help. Very soon after reading this, and a few other posts, I gained a different perspective that imparted a bit of clarity. Directly utilizing that clarity, I made this song, which is also doing very well in the OSC contest in the Instruments forum. From a progression standpoint, it's very simplistic, (i, III in G Dorian) but as an exercise it allowed me to nail down the concept/perspective in practice.

So, again, thanks! You all helped me take a large step forward. Technically, it's my first completed original. Big stuff, for me.