"Anchoring" with I, IV, V

[A.M. Gold]

This is sort of a poll question. I'm just curious to hear from anyone and everyone about their reliance, or lack thereof, on the I, IV, V relationships in the chord progressions they write. I'll take it as already common knowledge what the role/importance of these relationships is in so-called western music, so I'm just querying to see how many people embrace the prominence of I, IV, V, and how many of you do what you can to downplay it or avoid it altogether.

[jlocri]

It's a good basis, or rather a starting point, for a good progression. Even in things like classical or jazz where wildly moving chord progressions can be common, something similar to I IV V is there. The reason it's so popular has to do with cadences, pre-dominants and traditions that have lasted since common music was a couple of monks chanting.

[jancivil]

I'm not interested in that business at all. I was about to say there are no chord progressions in the music I have to hear, but there is one, a turnaround to solve a problem of a distant new key. I did use an extension of V-i, a form of V7 b5, which got me where I was going (from C tonic to B) efficiently. But the voice leading was the thing that makes it work so well.

I generally write parts, lines in counterpoint, work from melodies and decorate them with complementary lines or the right color sonorous clothes, or I'm working from a rhythmic base and decorating/coloring from there.
Often the melody is something I play over a pad/drone thing I loosely build first, the vibrations and phenomena from the sums and differences in the sonorities suggests shapes I set out to exploit.

[psenior]

When playing other people's songs, I do focus on where the tonics and dominants are. When I write, I trust my ears and only start using theory when I hit a rough spot.

I don't have a problem relying on tonics and dominants because I can pretty much make them sound as consonant or dissonant as I please.

[trewq]

Heel yeah! I probably always use 'I IV V' progressions, or a part thereof, when I'm playing triads.

But if any chord may be referenced to 'I', and any mode of a scale has its own 'I IV V' sound, and you include related substitutions like Am for C, and Dm for F, for example, it covers A LOT. AKA getting the most out of a scale using triads. But I'm self-taught so I could be wrong!

[A.M. Gold]

What do you use when you aren't using triads?

[debra1rlo]

sometimes yes, sometimes no, but it's not something i think about that much. mostly i'm just trying to play something that sounds good to me, so whatever works.

[trewq]

What do you use when you aren't using triads?

The guitar was all I ever used for playing only triads (the only chord type I've used 'I IV V' methods with) - I miss the guitar and that kind of involvement, to play in a band again. But the software has been such an attention grabber and time bandit, especially as the developer, and well worth it too BTW. But to finish answering your question, if I play triads with the software, its in a channel selected (while others are also playing arps), and I would still use 'I IV V' as I click on them from a list as the channel triggers the arp function. This thread got me checking out the modes again for I IV V - gotten by selecting the reference note and running the list again.

[A.M. Gold]

You do realize that most chord types are still built off of triads, even if you are playing many jazzy extensions?

The only time you wouldn't be playing a triad would be if you intentionally left out the third or the fifth (as in a power chord or something like a suspended fourth or a flatted fifth chord), or if you were playing very dissonant chords. There are also some "rootless" chords that are not based on triads.

Because something is played as an arpeggio doesn't mean it's not based on a triad.

[trewq]

You do realize that most chord types are still built off of triads, even if you are playing many jazzy extensions?

The only time you wouldn't be playing a triad would be if you intentionally left out the third or the fifth (as in a power chord or something like a suspended fourth or a flatted fifth chord), or if you were playing very dissonant chords. There are also some "rootless" chords that are not based on triads.

Because something is played as an arpeggio doesn't mean it's not based on a triad.

Yes I know this A.M.

But I guess thats important to point out in a theory forum where precise symantics and definitions are important.

[A.M. Gold]

I asked because I'm still not following what you meant when you said you didn't use triads. Can you name some of the types of chords you prefer that don't use triads?

Not wanting to bust your balls here, but it's important to be clear and use terminology correctly if we are trying to discuss theory effectively.

[trewq]

I asked because I'm still not following what you meant when you said you didn't use triads. Can you name some of the types of chords you prefer that don't use triads?

Not wanting to bust your balls here, but it's important to be clear and use terminology correctly if we are trying to discuss theory effectively.

uh, where did I write anything about NOT using triads?

[jancivil]

You do realize that most chord types are still built off of triads, even if you are playing many jazzy extensions?

"Most." What, statistically? I 'realize' much more is possible and that's interesting.

The only time you wouldn't be playing a triad would be if you intentionally left out the third or the fifth (as in a power chord or something like a suspended fourth or a flatted fifth chord), or if you were playing very dissonant chords. There are also some "rootless" chords that are not based on triads.

I come up with sonorities (or 'chords' if you must) all the time built on other principles, regardless of the intent, to be 'consonant' or not. If you are speaking strictly about a style of music, you can speak strictly about devices applied to and say 'the only time you would or would not' and it has a context, hence a meaning. Your statement deconstructed: 'stray from triads much and you find very dissonant results or that you haven't roots to anchor by'. It isn't a true statement.

The potential devices are endless. You can make them up even. You are arbitrarily limiting the palette - and asserting this will be true for someone else - according to what your understanding is. The question in your original post suggests you're wondering about the outside of this box a little. Asserting your understanding at the moment as a limit is the opposite, isn't it.

in the 20th century, composers experimented, explored, found things that were novel. For intance, the idea of quartal harmonies isn't new anymore, you can find it before the 20th century begins (eg., Debussy).

Take an idea of stacking fifths (and finding voicings, inversions of etc); note well, the very structure of scale relationships as we know them owes to perfect fifths relationships. This is true of western music and it is true of eastern music. It's based in knowledge of acoustics. In the west, scalar relationships predate harmony, writing lines predates chordal thinking. There is more than one way to obtain vertical interest or clothe a line.

Music is a wide open sky of ideas.

[resonanceaudio]

In classical harmony, the dominant chord (V) is necessary in order to establish key.

Chord IV (or V) may be substituted for the Neapolitan 6th (N6 or b2^6) if it forms part of a functioning cadence.

In a minor key - say, A minor - remember that strictly speaking if your dominant is E Minor, then you are in Aeolian mode. Minor keys have a major dominant unless there is explicit modulation to the relative Major (C major in this case).

However, just like Debussy, one should always refrain from using too much of chord I as it closes music down. If you are interested in harmony then I would greatly suggest studying the scores of Debussy; he was a master of dominant harmony and creating a false tonic.

[Jafo]

There's nothing wrong with V-I, but I tend to avoid it. There are options. bVII-I and vmin-I are usable variants on dominant cadences, if you don't want to go too far afield. But we can do even better, such as V7sus4-I or Isus4-I.

Still, I find that I prefer subdominant cadences instead: IV-I and its variants. You still get a feeling of completion and fulfillment, but it's not so predictable whackety-boom marching band. More gospel, really -- it's the "Amen" cadence, after all. Soulful. Great variations on this are ivmin-I (the flat 6 is extra poignant) and iimin7/5-I. *shrug* Maybe I just listen to the Stones, the Doors, and the Who too much.

The Beatles got a lot of mileage out of triad progressions, just raising or lowering the root by a third and (usually) making the chord major. Kinda floaty, and very melodic. Another cool trick they used was to take the primary note in each measure and make it root of a chord, or -- even better -- the major third.

Chord substitutions (which a lot of these are) are another technique. You can do it the easy/natural way by changing one note (usually the root) and using that chord in place of the chord you'd normally use -- iii for I, vi for IV, viidim for V. Take a chord which is normally major and turn it minor, or the reverse. iimin7-bII7-I is pretty common in jazz -- the bass note descends in half-steps. bII7 is a substitution of V7, because in any key, these two chords will have the same tritone relationship between the major third and flat seventh, just reversed. (The bop guys really took tritone substitution to an extreme!) You can also reharmonize a melody on its repetition.

You could also try drones (very cool with microtuning) or pedal point techniques.

And who says you need chords anyway? Most of the world says you don't.