Need help understanding when to use triads vs sevenths in chord progression

[J19134]

Hey everyone,

I've been playing piano for a long time and have recently gotten into writing scores/producing music (very beginner, but still enjoying it), and all the "tutorials" I've found on writing chord progressions usually all do the same thing with the chords: Basic triad, put the middle note up an octave, or add a 7th. However, those tutorials are more about like "beat making", and so I was curious about when, in general, when writing say a 4 chord progression, how many of those should be 7th chords and how many should be basic triads?

Are there any guidelines or is it just what sounds best?

[eLawnMust]

Depends mostly on what type of music... Unless I'm doing funk or similar I don't use dominant 7ths... For my jazz-fusion related is mostly minor7th or 9ths with sometimes 13ths (usually skipping 11ths) and same with Major7ths so Major7th-9th 13th... tension for transition I use suspended 7ths often add9 in place of dominant 7ths... So YES, do what sounds best for the intended genre... I have played alot of others tunes finding they often do not follow formulae but work well... Studio musicians used to comment on having to tolerate Joni Mitchell's 'Weird Chords' but hey, they worked...

[jancivil]

everything is just what sounds best. unless you have to adhere to a certain style, where you have never do this and you must do this instead. or that as a discipline.

[AsPeeXXXVIII]

Just use your intuition. If you feel like a 7th chord sounds good in a particular place in the progression, go ahead and insert one in that place.

Music theory is like alcohol: overuse of it is harmful.

[wonshu]

Music theory is a method to describe how people use and structure music.

It is a tool for you to understand music better from a theoretical (get it?) standpoint and pairing that with your intuition makes you a better communicator with other similarly educated musicians / composers, because you speak the same language.

Your aesthetic, taste and sonic preferences dictate your music and if it works for you then it's good and "correct".

[Zeisner]

Without using your ears it's impossible to understand when to use what where.

[jancivil]

before you worry about correctness or 'theory', analyze what you gravitate to, what you go for. take whatever you can by ear off of recordings - keep going til you get most if not all of it - and see what it's made of. You can't reasonably make choices to do with taste until you know what yours is about.

[sjm]

I would suggest listening to a wide range of styles and ideally, learning to play songs from different genres. But at the bare minimum, look up the chord progressions and follow along while listening.

Blues, for example, uses 7th chords extensively. Pop rarely does. Do that to develop your ear and hear how the different chords sound in context and how the different flavours often give different styles part of their unique sound.

That will help you learn the vocabulary, hear in your head what chord you want to use and allow you to allude to or write in different styles.