KVR Audio

Dewdman42 · Post by **Dewdman42** » Thu Jul 20, 2017 5:51 pm

Thanks for reviving this thread!

Since my original post last year, I played around with neo-reimann tonnetz diagrams enough to get bored with it. It was interesting to see some patterns come out of it, but after a while I only found a few useful things...and mainly that was after relating to what some of my favorite film score composers do and realizing they only use a few cliche harmonizations...some of which fit on to the tonnetz grid and some do not.

chromatic voice leading is probably the direction I should move more into. The works you mention, wagner, etc.. I was not able to study that material in college and have never really been able to gain any useful insights into the harmonic structures being used. Frankly I'm not sure its yet very well understood, that post romantic period was a time when everyone was trying to break the rules and nobody really came up with a good set of "rules" to describe what different people were doing..other then..."its chromatic now".

Interestingly, Neo-Riemann is about voice leading, the chords are related based on common tones and chords that have only one or two notes a half step away. But this is very rudimentary and crude in my estimation. There are a few interesting harmonizations that came out of it for me in a john williams-esque kind of way, but I can arrive to those other ways too.

The reason for exploring these things is simply to guide and inspire and bring fresh approaches into play...not to be married to names of anything. that is all. We explore what composers in the past have done and try to understand it so that we are not just sitting there at the piano playing the same old licks or randomly trying things until something works. Whether its classical harmony theory, berklee method, neo-reimann, or whatever you want to talk about...they are just ways to explore musical ideas. We are exposed to so much diatonic music on the radio, tv, and everywhere else...I personally find it easy to get sucked back down those boring roads unless I explore some other approaches... The part of my brain that I want to think of as the "inspired" part, is unfortunately heavily influenced by a lifetime of diatonic pop music. So I need to be nudged out of bounds. Doing so without guidelines usually leads me to nonsense. So these various different theories are nothing more then guidelines, paths in new directions to explore and seek inspiration in new ways.

That is what caught my interest about Neo-Reimann for this thread. I am interested in any other theories out there.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Thu Jul 20, 2017 9:24 pm

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Thu Jul 20, 2017 9:25 pm

Dewdman42 · Post by **Dewdman42** » Thu Jul 20, 2017 9:37 pm

Bach followed some kind of rules in his mind even if it was sub conscious. You are correct that nobody codified those into rules until later but who cares? I think you're missing the point. No matter

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Thu Jul 20, 2017 9:40 pm

no, you figure it out

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Thu Jul 20, 2017 9:41 pm

Dewdman42 wrote:Bach followed some kind of rules in his mind even if it was sub conscious. You are correct that nobody codified those into rules until later but who cares? I think you're missing the point. No matter

I'm trying to expand your thinking. If you're going to be argumentative, forget it.

Armagibbon · Post by **Armagibbon** » Sun Jul 23, 2017 12:55 am

Chats like this make me happy that I'm just a dipshit chord slinger. Like I do that williams modal interchange thing all the time with not a lot of thought or effort and I don't even have to sweat the why.

Ignorance really is bliss ahahahaha

Neo-Riemann theory and beyond