Make Chord with Chords?

[Kalamata Kid]

Hello,

Suppose I have a midi FX that allows me to play a chord using a single key. Each key plays a different chord. Can one use let's say three keys to make a new chord?

Ok, a stupid question from a chord challenged musician wannabe.

Yes, I searched to see if anyone else ever asked such a dumb question but could not find one.

[tapper mike]

You can use any method that you enjoy. It's your music.

Chords built upon other chords are sometimes simply extensions
Like... Take C major and attach a Bb major you get C-E-G-Bb-D-F that's a C11 chord

And sometimes they are referred to as polychords.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychord

It's better to experience the chords you form by voicing all the notes yourself rather then having some type of harmony generator. Grown up chords like 11's b11's 13's b13's and altered bass chords are common in some styles yet not really applicable in others. But it's your music, you do it your way and find out what works best for you when working out melodic idea's against them.

There are two things to be conscious of. When using those big chords one right after another the overall sound can turn to mush. As well if the voicings are close or used with a thick sound they can turn muddy and be very hard to write over.

[ghettosynth]

You can use any method that you enjoy. It's your music.
or used with a thick sound they can turn muddy and be very hard to write over.

Dude, I have to say, that I really like your attitude, you really add value to this sub-forum.

[tapper mike]

Thanks
I realize my statements can seem in conflict with one another.

Yes sometimes big chords can sound mushy or muddy. That's why you have ears to figure out if that mush or mud or harshness or sweetness you are looking for or if by experimenting in different registers somethings work and others don't.

Most rockers would have never heard of a E7#9 chord or dared played it if it weren't for the way Hendrix used it. The chord was very popular in "modern"
jazz but not other types of music.

Writing Music and music theory isn't about praying to a higher being or living your life like a puppet attached to strings.

You can find out what works for you one of three ways. You can play someone else's music and try to imitate them. That's fine. You can read a bunch of theories and learn to apply them when and as you feel like You can stumble on something you like. You can also find out more about what you learned playing other peoples or your own music and try to attach some reminder to how it works. That's theory. Usually someone will come along with a good idea and everyone else will theorize why it's a good idea.

Theories are pockets of ideas that sometimes work well with everything and sometimes only work in limited situations. However.....Much of the novelty of new ideas comes from breaking boundaries.

Music is not about math or science It's about personal expression like art.
The thing about music theories is it comes in handy when you don't know what to do next. Let's say you have this idea for a song and it has a repeating note. You like it but don't know what to call the idea. So you do some reading and you come across drone tones or pedal point. Doesn't apply to every song you'll ever do but it's something you can pull out of your pocket on a rainy day when you want to play something but don't know what.

[Frantz]

Suppose I have a midi FX that allows me to play a chord using a single key. Each key plays a different chord. Can one use let's say three keys to make a new chord?

You would be making a polychord. It would probably be too dissonant for pop music but there's no reason you can't use it if it sounds good to you.

[jancivil]

well, in terms of vocabulary, 'polychords' is more advanced vocabulary, so working on that level is probably going to be fruitful to the degree you can speak the basic vocabulary first.

[sjm]

Talking of pop, while it's true that most pop is pretty mundane major/minor stuff, reading the OP makes me think of Oasis' Wonderwall and how it's structured.

The song is built up on continuously playing the same 2 notes (G and D) on the third fret on the 2 highest strings on the guitar. Let's leave aside any discussion about whether 2 notes are really a "chord" and just say that this is a G5 that's then combined with a different series of chords that are played on the lower strings.

The lower strings go through an E G D A7 chord progression. The basic shapes are essentially the normal open chords (without the top two strings of course) of Em G D A7, playing the following notes (X means the low E string is not played):

Em: E B E G (Em)
G: G B D G (G)
D: X A D A (D5)
A7: E A E G (I'll call it A7, it's an A5 with the 7th, but no third; a major works well though)

If you put the two parts together, your progression works out as Em7 G Dsus4 A7sus4.

If you can define your own note combinations for each key on your keyboard in the MIDI FX, you could assign one key to play the G5 of the 2 highest strings, and assign 4 other keys to play the Em G D A7 progression. Then you can play 2 notes at a time to create the final progression (one note always being the same one of course).

Now obviously the G5 and D5 aren't particularly intricate - but it's definitely a pop example using an approach that suggests combining two sets of notes together to create a new set, as in the OP.

The progression can also be extended nicely, for example substitute the A7sus4 with A11. This adds C# and B to the chord - essentially A major and G major played together. This is roughly what I play when grooving to the song on piano (C# using the left hand, the B in the melody line). You can also keep the D and G playing over the pre-chorus chorus part, turning the C into a Cadd9, for example. The original version doesn't do this, but it sounds fine if you do it.


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I guess what I'm getting at is that you might find it easier to define simpler note combinations per key, and make sure they are combinations that are designed to work with each other, e.g. share notes. Combining multiple complex chords together is a recipe for cacophony, assuming they don't share any common notes. Playing three random major chords over one another isn't going to work most of the time.

[tapper mike]

I can't say for the current medium of music but I have found quite a lot of pop that has occasional "reaching" in a song. Where as the simplistic is offset by the rarified extention or displaced substitution.

I guess much goes into where you find it. If you are seeking the primary chord with simplistic progressions yes they are out there. If you are seeking something with either the occasional occidental variant or more robust progressions such as the concept that sjm elaborates on yes there are plenty of those too.

No one has to "reach" for anything. If you are happy writing simple songs then be happy with that.

[Tricky-Loops]

Would it really be possible to make whole songs (and chord progressions) only with polychords?

I could imagine this technique to make some staccato stabs but for composing whole songs it seems to be awkward to use a chord generating MIDI FX to make other chords with them...

[tapper mike]

Yes, It's your music you can do what you want with it.


I personally don't enjoy the experience from a writing or listening experience but I'm not everyone. I also prefer a defined melody with my accompianment (chords) rather an endless series of chords. I did enjoy it a lot when I first started experimenting with them. Now I prefer to have an area of the song that has some primary chords as a place to come home to or.... occasional polychords where I have a transitional movement going on.

Sectional variation (having different sections with different progressions and or rhythmic/tempo variance) I find a prerequisite for music I enjoy listening to. Your results may vary


Lets talk about ends and means. One means may be simply experimenting and happening on a sound that clicks for you. You are not alone. A lot of people write creative ideas that may be linked to a theory that they are not aware of or may be forging their own path. If you are not that wildly creative and have a hard time explaining what you are doing to yourself let alone others then understanding the concept after the fact so you can recreate it in different situations or.... Using an established concept as a means to an ends may help.

So lets talk about primary chords and all the other chords. Primary chords are major, minor, diminished. Power chords are chords built on the perfect fifth interval and do not expose the value of whether the chord is major or minor. Many altruists don't accept a power chord as being a chord because it is merely a diad or a double-stop. Two notes played at the same time do not constitute a chord to purists. That hasn't stopped rock and roll and shouldn't stop you.

So now we have extensions, alterations, clusters, "Over chords" and substitutions, and reharmonizations. And we haven't even touched progressions.
Remember it's all about context.


Common extensions
If you take an F major chord (fac) and place an am chord above it some of the tones overlap. fac,ace. That's a major 7th chord. FM7. If you change the A minor chord to an A diminished you get.... An F dominant 7 F-A-C-Eb. When applying naming conventions to chord tones that are extended it's always based on the chord's scale structure. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14. Because certain values have already been stated there is no sense repeating that name value (such as 8 is the octave) what you get are chords that are named to the nearest extension of the next octave. F9, F11, F13. In jazz and rock you don't have to play every note in the chord tones to form the chord. Most times all you need is an abbreviated form of the chord extention. These "short hand" chords are often referred to as "Comping chords" the gaps help to free up the fingers and also reduce some of the muddiness of the spaces inbetween.

Lets say I'm playing a chord that is spelled. G-F-A-C. That's a G11 to a jazz guy but to a rocker/folk/country guy it's a slash or an over chord...G/F



It's not a F "add2" or a F9 or a F add 9 because the G is the lowest chord tone. Then we can also use "ambivalent" chords sometimes called rootless chords. Lets say we have a chord that is voiced G-G-B-E. It could be a G6, It could be a CMaj7 it could be an Eminor with a G in the bass. Or it could even be a G13 with the 5th, 7th and 11th omitted.
Remember when you orchestrate you can hand off certain harmonic elements to your other instruments. As an example a guitar part may only be playing the primary chord while the piano or other sectional instruments play only the extensions.

So far I've only scratched the surface. Lets' talk about Harmonic justification.

Harmonic justification is when you have a melody line with a note that may not jive with the chord you are playing over or the key you are in. You can justify the chord to support that note. As an example play a sus4 or augmented4 where it might not apply naturally or a b9,b11,b13 chord so the chord value supports the note value. Harmonic justification is a technique favored but not limited to jazz soloist performers be it guitar or keys when they have to express both chord and melody at the same time. This is often referred to as "Chord/melody" and is one aspect or approach to "block chords"
However, Block Chords can also have a separate interpretation see below.

You may find yourself experimenting with simple alterations and common substitutions. Which frankly is to lengthy to get into here.

When dealing with Polychords Upper structure is the thing that most people (including myself) think about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_structure

The master of upper structure and harmonic/melodic substitution.
Bill Evans - Blue in Green


It has "that quality" of something that sounds so right but yet wrong at the same time.

Getting back to "block chords" for a bit. You can also use "reharmonization" to add color/character to your sound. Remember harmony is about multiple tones that come from multiple sources.
Dick Hyman explains this better then I can.



Nat King Cole was the celebrated master of "Drop 2" re-harmonization that Hyman expresses in his video. While he would reharmonize to the melody many of the notes he'd also leave a few melodic notes untouched by the harmony. Meanwhile his guitarist would "comp" using the progression behind him.


You don't have to get as elaborate as hyman does in the above video. You can stick to simple 5ths like classic rock harmonies and common chord progressions or thirds/minor thirds that can either be focused in key or isolated to perfect values regardless of chord movement/key. I realize when starting out on reharmonization or block chords or any of the above it can be frustrating getting your fingers to work out the ideas in your head. Don't give up. Keep trying and slow things down it will come. Along the way look for words that describe the sensation of listening to the tonalities in a non-judgy way. Words like thick, fat, pristine, sparkly, jagged.

The character of the music isn't always about the harmonic or static key/melodic note value. Rhythm, timing, tempo, key, and dynamics also affect then end product.
IMO If you are solely concerned with the harmonic/melodic content of writing/listening to music then you are denying yourself all that music has to offer. And as a result your music may seen quite lifeless and flat regardless of the great lengths you go to exploring only the static isolated harmonic or melodic motion of a piece. Along the way a really good thing to incorporate ideas like rhythmic variations methods and modes for your harmony and melody.

[jancivil]

"Em7 G Ds4 A7s4"...

I guess what I'm getting at is that you might find it easier to define simpler note combinations per key, and make sure they are combinations that are designed to work with each other, e.g. share notes..

easier than what? there is only one chord at a time there. it will be clearer and more coherent to consider than example as per voice leading. I don't know why we'd want to justify adhering to 'push-a-button-get-a-chord' to the extent of suggesting that much work; 'defining chords'? As though to avoid the real work. Kind of an empty exercise IMO, I'm sure the OP, or anybody that doesn't have the backgroud is buffaloed completely.

[Sendy]

I don't know about whole chords but playing chords with a patch where the oscillators are tuned a fifth or sometimes a fourth or some other interval can be sublime.

[sjm]

Easier than what?

Easier than randomly hitting keys to play chords with no thought behind what's going on in the hope that something amazing happens.

[jancivil]

yeah, in the long run it's better to proceed with a real understanding. For the OP it's probably "easier" not to do that. I think one kinda sorta oughtta get away from that whole approach rather than try and read that to fit voicing principles to it. I get you though, that's 'food for thought'.

it reminded me of when I was a kid and pushed more than one chord button on the little plastic toy organ. I wanted to get more than it gave me. The result wasn't that musical.

[Kalamata Kid]

Hello again,

My style of music I like to play is classical though far from sounding like it. I use no loops nor a drum beat. I improvise on a keyboard and play for myself and if others like my music that would be fantastic. I know very little about chords and chord progression. I have used the midi fx to play chord where a single key can play a chord.

I know from other threads it is frowned upon if anyone dares to take a shortcut to playing chords. Yes, one must spend years learning chords and chord progression. So I am thankful no one here has given me a hard time about my OP and even more appreciative is the encouragement I received. I love positive minded people. Gee I wish my friend were more like that.

I do not care for mush but will not insult anyone that does. As for dissonance I generally do not care for it though I can accidently make such noise without trying.

Thanks to all for the music theory lesson. I learned a new word "polychords". A very important bit of info to help me answer my question.

tapper mike, you said "When using those big chords one right after another the overall sound can turn to mush." Yes, I was thinking of using the big chords one after another but do not care for mush. So in a sense if a chord has too many notes it can turn to mush and the more notes it has the likelihood increases again to turning into mush. So something to keep in mind but the ear will likely be more judgmental than the mind.

Will it help if the chord duration is short to avoid the mush. Avoid sustain? Currently my system is down so I cannot even try this.

Tricky-Loops' question about making a song mostly or completely using polychords. Any comments?

Another Question.
Returning to the midi fx single key that will make a chord: Since each chord has a tonic can the tonic then be considered a single note and from it make a chord? Sorry if I am off on the terminology.