Composing via chord progression

[MOK19]

Lately I've been thinking about all the different approaches towards making music that are out there, and the different results they can yield. My tendencies up to this point have not included starting with block-chord's and defining chord progression first. But after talking to a jazz musician whose music I liked, he said block chord progressions was his starting point. So I'd like to give that a try.

Unfortunately, I managed to throw in a complication that's giving me trouble already. See, I had this acappella I wanted to use, a soul vocalist, and I figured out that she was using G major pentatonic scale. Now my goal is to try to figure out what pad chords I'd like defining the harmony behind her. This might not be such a big deal, I could just bang on the keyboard until I hear something I like, but the problem with that is that I'm only beginning to learn to play the piano. Figuring out which notes to play, for me, is an arduous exercise in counting intervals one at a time, and double-checking to make sure chords and notes will fit, along with a great deal of confusion and uncertainty. So just banging on the keyboard isn't very effective for me yet.

Basically I'm hoping that people can give me tips for the terrain I'm in. Both with working around an existing pentatonic melody, and with process of discovering and nailing down a simplified block chord progression. I've been staring at this project for over a day now and am feeling rather frustrated with such an immediate roadblock.

Could ya lend me a hand?

[alinenunez]

what i think u are trying to understand is more Music Theory . now if u are Trying to emerge more in Music Theory the best way is to study .
now If u dont want to study and use more your ears than Theory itself (many people call this cheating lol ). Try Chordspace. Chordspace is PLug in that help you build any kind of Chords and u can configure your progression based on a root of a key .
easy and simple

[VicDiesel]

See, I had this acappella I wanted to use, a soul vocalist, and I figured out that she was using G major pentatonic scale. Now my goal is to try to figure out what pad chords I'd like defining the harmony behind her. This might not be such a big deal, I could just bang on the keyboard until I hear something I like, but the problem with that is that I'm only beginning to learn to play the piano. Figuring out which notes to play, for me, is an arduous exercise in counting intervals one at a time, and double-checking to make sure chords and notes will fit, along with a great deal of confusion and uncertainty. So just banging on the keyboard isn't very effective for me yet.

You need to learn more theory. And get a lot more experience. With an adventurous melody it's easy to come up with a wild arrangement. If the melody is limited in its implications, you need to be more adventurous. If the melody is in G, you need to know that you can probably use a Bm chord somewhere instead of a D, and maybe B instead of Bmin, and use an F# chord to slide into that B. Et cetera.

Start buying songbooks of 1930s standards and analyze the chord progressions. That'll give you plenty of ideas.

Victor.

[MOK19]

alinenunez:
Well, I've already finished a book recently on some theory, so I've got a primer on much of it, and I'm not averse to delving into the details. Yet, I can't take classes on this, so I'm stuck with you guys, and perhaps another more detailed book down the road(have a gnarly SQL book to read first, though). So, yes, it is theory that I'm interested in here(hence the forum section).

Vic: I might do that, regarding the 30's song book. That's a good idea.
Although, as for getting more experience, I figured that by attempting this, that's what I was doing. Aside from reading, or classes, I'm not aware of any other way of getting better.

[VicDiesel]

Vic: I might do that, regarding the 30's song book. That's a good idea.
Although, as for getting more experience, I figured that by attempting this, that's what I was doing.

That's called re-inventing the wheel. Other people have already invented really pretty wheels, and there's nothing wrong with getting inspiration from that.

Victor.

[MOK19]

I don't understand what you're getting at, with reinventing the wheel. That I shouldn't bother trying to find out more about the topic that's in my lap? How else shall I gain more experience except by asking questions and experimenting with what I read about? Since this appears as a catch 22, I'm assuming we're misunderstanding each other.

[mr]

Uhmmm let me understand.
If you want to find the chords for a cappella melody, then, you are not starting with the chords at all. Or am I missing something?

[MOK19]

I know the notes and key that the vocalist sings, but I presume that I still have a wide range of options for making a chord progression around that. I also presumed that there might be potential tips or guidelines or rules of thumb for making a chord progression around an existing melody (the vocal).

[psenior]

As a beginner, I think it's a bit much to expect you to harmonize the vocalist's melody using block chords. It doesn't even sound like you can play that well yet. I can easily tell you how I would harmonize G major pentatonic with block chords, but can you play it?

G major pentatonic is G A B D E
The block chords would be G6 (G B D E G), Adim7 (A C Eb Gb A), G6 (B D E G B), G6 (D E G B D), and G6 (E G B D E).
You said this was for a soul vocalist. The harmonies I have given you above will work but they probably don't sound soulful.

I can see why that jazz musician told you he likes to start with block chords; I do too, but for soul music you have to bring the funk. So let's try another harmonization. This time, I will use the notes of G major pentatonic as bass notes instead of melody notes. And I will keep in mind the need to sound soulful.
Now, I came up with Gmaj9, Am7, Bm7, D7, Em7. A little better, but I'm still not happy. We have gone from vanilla to vanilla with tiny bits of chocolate in it.

Let's give this harmonization thing one more try. Now, I am going to treat G major pentatonic as E minor pentatonic. This should be the harmonic equivalent of dousing our previous concoction with delicious chocolate fudge. Here we go.
Em9 (E G B D F#), Gmaj9 (G B D F# A), Am9 (A C E G B), B7b9#5 (B D# G A C), and Dm9 (D F A C E). Now, I'm happy. I am in soulful house music harmony heaven and I can improvise bluesy melodic solos to my heart's content over these chords in E minor pentatonic.

[ecsmix]

Happy New Year for you Psenior and all the forun's members.
Another amazing post by Psenior,thanks again!!!

@MOK19, If you are eager to produce music a.s.a.p without learning to actually play.
Pick a chord book, learn the theory how to apply the chords, notes, read Psenior posts here, including some music analysis of chord progression, harmony vs melody.
All done by psenior, it's an amazing help.
Then draw the chords on the midi sequencer instead of actually playing.
Works for the beginning, but knowing how to play it's essential for composing.
Specially for soulfull/jazzy house.

This tip from psenior is a good progression that has energy since the bassline is always ascending. Try it out.

[MOK19]

I am in soulful house music harmony heaven and I can improvise bluesy melodic solos to my heart's content over these chords in E minor pentatonic.

That's incredible info, thank you. I'm going to try these each to understand their contrast, and then experiment with it.

However, I wonder: Although the vocalist is using pentatonic, do I have to stick to pentatonic? Are there somewhat predictable effects from attempting to play a diatonic(?) major or minor(for example) over that? Or would I simply end up avoiding a couple notes due to dissonance, and effectively stay in pentatonic?

@MOK19, If you are eager to produce music a.s.a.p without learning to actually play.

Indeed, there are a great many people who make good music who cannot play the piano, or know any ounce of theory.

Works for the beginning, but knowing how to play it's essential for composing.
Specially for soulfull/jazzy house.

I definitely agree with you there. Or, rather, that's my impression. Hence my noobing around here.

You mention "theory on how to apply chords," and with the impression that title gives, that sounds precisely like what I'd like to focus on in my reading(I've already completed one book that was more of a broad overview, as might be apparent).

But I want to make sure I understand what exactly we're talking about, regarding chord application. I assume this covers chordal interaction? The way one style chord of chord could affect another? Or is it something else?

KVR posts aside, is there suggested reading on this sub-topic?
Even if not, I've certainly got a full plate.

[MOK19]

I've contrasted the progressions you've laid out, psenior. I also now understand whats going on a lot better; It feels somewhat straight forward, but for some reason it didn't appear so at first. As long as I build chords from the root, and the roots stick on the scale of G major pentatonic (or better yet, it's relative minor), my choices are laid out and greatly narrowed down.

Funny how one or two missing links, despite the rest of what I know, can render it all unintelligible. Really, it was more like a minor perspective shift. But now I get it. Much of this now seems like it should be pretty easy.

There's one thing that threw me off, though. In the second progression you used notation that I didn't understand. In the chord B7b9#5, what the heck does that 5 represent? Also, this appears not to be the 'default' chord. Was it chosen specifically for it's particular dramatic effect? I'm guessing the two accidentals in that chord aren't a random change, but rather a category of chord?

Another question came to mind: In the major/minor pentatonic scales, how is it determined which roots create either a major or minor chord? Is it borrowed directly from the diatonic scale of the same tonic?

Apologies for keeping the question train chuggin along. I promise it'll stop soon. Or at least warrant a new thread... hehe

[psenior]

You don't have to stick to the pentatonic scale. It might get a little boring after a while. Play G major or E minor. There are lots of choices if you are clever. I don't worry much about avoiding notes or dissonance. Trust your ears.

This stuff is easy. It's really hard to make mistakes in harmonizing music. I explained it that way because I couldn't quite tell where the gap in your knowledge was (plus I wanted to tell a little story).

Why I picked B7b9#5? A couple reasons; that #5 fit better into E minor pentatonic than the default chord, which some would say is a plain B7 chord but I would say is B7b9. If you read the reply I posted to you in another thread, I told you that I could play any note over a dominant and get away with it. The logic behind B7b9#5 is that it is really Cm6 over B7. I really like this sound because it implies C melodic minor, which, if you analyze it, lets you hit all the altered notes (b9, #9, b5, #5) over B7. It gives you a ton of options as to how consonant or dissonant you want to sound, yet has an inherent cohesiveness to it. If you want to understand altered dominants better, I have an article available for download. The link can be found on another recent thread on this forum.

Yes, pentatonic major and pentatonic minor are derived from major and minor. So, the chord qualities are the same in both. An easy way to think about it is the prefixes 'penta' means 5 and 'dia' means 7. So pentatonic means 5 note scale and diatonic means 7 note scale. However, minor pentatonic gets used a lot in blues and rock and they often play dominant 7th chords on every note of the minor pentatonic scale. If you didn't like my previous 3 attempts at harmonization, that was the next approach that I was going to take.

[leighbeynon]

Let's give this harmonization thing one more try. Now, I am going to treat G major pentatonic as E minor pentatonic. This should be the harmonic equivalent of dousing our previous concoction with delicious chocolate fudge. Here we go.
Em9 (E G B D F#), Gmaj9 (G B D F# A), Am9 (A C E G B), B7b9#5 (B D# G A C), and Dm9 (D F A C E). Now, I'm happy. I am in soulful house music harmony heaven and I can improvise bluesy melodic solos to my heart's content over these chords in E minor pentatonic.

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?
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 ?

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

[wrench45us]

those chords are in Gmajor and its related e minor, so all related to the same scale, so all chords are composed from notes of the G major scale and e minor harmonic scale so the V chord of e minor has that D# that wouldn't be there with strict G major scale

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

usually one would use a piviot chord to wander into a closely related key. say move from the Gmaj to G7 and go into C. Or 'backcycle' before the introduction of Am with bm E7 to A for two bars or whatever you think sounds decent and fits the intent/mood of the song.

in my experience, theory doesn't handcuff one's choices, but opens up a lot of workable choices