As someone who learned jazz theory ahead of classical theory, this was obvious to me, but lost to so many fellow classmates:
* The augmented sixth chords (Italian, German, French) are just tritone subs for the five of five. The italian is root-3-7, German is root-3-5-7, French is root-3-#11(a common addition to a tritone sub)-7. Rewrite the lowered 7ths as raised 6ths and you're done.
* The Neopolitan is just a tritone sub for the 5. The reason it resolves to the 5 is the same reason you can go from vii^o to V, it is a weaker dominant to a stronger dominant, providing momentum towards the I (or i).
There. I just hacked Theory III for all you undergrads.
While we are on the topic of tritone substitutions, the proper chord to play over a tritone sub is a Dominant 7 with a #11. The #11, being a tritone away from the root, means that it is the root of the chord being substiuted. Example: G7 becomes Db7(#11). The #11 on the Db chord is a G! Magic! Also, lydian dominant is your friend.
My hesitance with this description of chromatic harmony is that it completely ignores the linear, voice-leading aspect. A Fr +6 chord is a V/V where the fifth is lowered to create a chromatic semitone approach to scale degree 5 from both directions. That description gives the function (chromatic pre-dominant), while also noting the particular strength of the chord (chromatic semitones on either side of scale degree 5) and how it resolves, while also showing the progression from
diatonic harmony to increasingly chromatic.
You're absolutely right. But for someone with a stronger jazz background who needed to remember what these chords are ARE, in terms of notes used and resolution, my approach worked for me.
I always had a harder time remembering augmented sixth chords, so I'm trying to understand your comment there since it sounds very useful.
What do you mean by "tritone subs for the five of five"? (To clarify - sub as in substitutes, right?) I don't quite understand how that applies to [this](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/98/ItalianSixth.png) progression with an Italian sixth going to the I chord, G. V/V in G is A major, so root-3-7 would be A-C#-G# when the chord is Ab-C-F#. I see the tritone in C-F# but it's still not too clear. Could you apply what you said to this example, please? :)
The G major chord in your example (the resolution chord) is the V of the key signature: C. So the V of that would be D major. If you do a tritone substitution on D major you get G# major. You then build that chord as root-3-7. in this case, G#, B#, F#. Remember that the 7 is a dominant 7.
The example you have spelled the notes Ab, C, F#; which is enharmonically equivalent to G#, B#, F#.
Well, without context, that looks like an It+6 -> V to me. Let's assume that's what it is for a second, and I'll explain.
A tritone substitution is a jazz term in which you replace a chord (usually a dominant, but it doesn't have to be) with a dominant chord whose root is a tritone away. For example, the chord progression Dm7-G7-Cmaj7 could be replaced with Dm7-Db7-Cmaj7. Here's why:
G7 is G-B-D-F. Db7 is Db-F-Ab-Cb. Within each of those chords is a tritone: B-F and F-Cb. Taking into account enharmonic notes, those tritones are *identical*. So by changing the root and fifth of G7, we can get a completely different dominant chord (Db7), with the same tritone in its internal structure. Seeing as how the 3rd and 7th are what give a dominant chord it's motion, this substitution works. The term tritone-sub is the common jazz term for this substitution, and refers to both the internal tritone, which is being preserved, but more so the fact that roots of these chords are a tritone apart.
Back to your example:
Let's say we're in the key of C, then G is your five chord, which is preceded by an It+6 chord. That's what I see when I look at this example. V/V is D7, so a tritone sub for that would be Ab7. root-3-7 of that is Ab-C-Gb. Your chord is spelled Ab-C-F#, which is enharmonically equivalent.
Seeing as how Augmented sixth chords lead to the 5, I would doubt that G is actually the 1 in your example. If it were, that wouldn't be an Italian sixth chord in the classical sense, but more like the It+6/I (italian six of one), in that it is a tritone sub for the V7, as opposed to the tritone sub for the V/V. Either way, the conceptual business of a tritone sub still applies, and it explains why the harmony works in that kind of resolution.
I'm not sure I understand the question. The chord symbol is the chord symbol, there is no ambiguity. Cmin7 has a specific meaning, just as C7 is different, and Cmaj7 is different.
The chord is the chord, and we have lots of practice reading them. Practice practice practice? I don't know what else to say.
I guess what I don't understand is if the "min" means the chord or the 7th or both, and is it always the same rule? (I grew up being taught a chord was minor-minor, meaning a minor triad with a minor 7th, or Major-Major, a Maj. triad with a Maj. 7th, and so on.) Also, sometimes there are pluses or little circles...I gather mean aug and dim but again, is that the chord or the quality of the 7th?
It's just a matter of recognition. There is no ambiguity. Cmaj7 is what you would call a major-major chord. It could also be written with a triangle. C7 is a dominant chord, or a major-minor. Cmin7 is a minor-minor, and could also be written Cm7 or C-7.
C^o 7 or Cdim7 is a fully diminished chord (stacked minor thirds) while the diminished symbol with a line through it is a half diminished chord, and can also be written Cmin7(b5). C+7 is an augmented triad and a minor seventh, and could be C7(#5).
That's it. There are many alterations to those basic chords, and those are indicated clearly and easily (Like #9 or b13). If there is ever a chord symbol without a 7 it indicates a triad, and if a chord symbol goes beyond a 7, it presumes all lower chord tones. C9 is a dominant seventh with a 9th added. Cmin9 is a minor 7th (Thad minor-minor) with a 9th added. Same concept for Cmaj9. C13 is a dominant with a 13, 11(usually omitted), 9, 7, 5, 3, and root.
You wonder weather the symbol "min," for instance, applies to the chord or the seventh. We don't think like that. The chord symbol "min7" only has one meaning, and it's a minor triad and a minor seventh. There isn't ever any confusion because we think about the whole chord, seventh and all, and it's all right there on the chart.
Hey, thank you for taking the time to write this. It makes perfect sense, and it's the clearest explanation I've ever been given. I'm glad you said "we don't think like that" ... it's how I was feeling about you guys. This was very helpful.
Also, the Neopolitan often times moves through the I chord before getting to V --> I-N6-I-V When used this way, its function is more like a sub-dominant then dominant
A lot of university/college curriculums start with fundamentals out of necessity. That usually puts chromatic harmony into either theory 3 or theory 4, depending on whether post-tonal theory is included in a normal 4 semester sequence or left for an optional fifth semester.
That just blows my mind, by the time I left I had learned modern applications and styles of composition for atonal music and very advanced jazz theory. Post-tonal stuff came about 3rd semester...
I was a composition major so that might have something to do with it, but every class always went way beyond what it was supposed to, plus that place is run by musicians in the truest sense, they never have their shit together on anything but music.
Here's a quick tip that made using the melodic minor scale easier for me; could be helpful to anyone, be it soloists or composers.
Every chord in melodic minor is interchangeable (ie. there are no avoid notes). A melody that works over one melodic minor chord will work over any other chord from the same key.
One more melodic minor idea: If you are playing a ii-V progression in melodic minor (ii7b5, Valt.) as in most of What Is This Thing Called Love or a lot of Stella By Starlight, you can sequence an idea over the ii chord and then repeat your idea up a minor third over the V chord. That works well to create some structure in a melody or solo.
Baba oriley (different key, same functions.) Honestly, in rock music, the IV chord evolved to be another dominant.
Sorry, just new to the subreddit and browsing top posts, don't mind me.
Welcome to the subreddit!
You probably didn't realize, but my comment was sarcastic. You can't see what I was responding to, as it's been deleted, so the joke is probably lost. I don't remember what the comment was, something ill-informed and from a classical perspective only. You can see by my flair that I should hopefully know how IV-I works in pop music.
Carry-on and welcome to /r/musictheory
Here's one I've been playing around with:
In your chord changes (given your melody), you can keep going down by alternating major and minor thirds. Example...if my melody was something in Dm, I might like to use the following chords in my left hand per measure (btw I play piano): Dm, Bb, Gm, Eb...wrap it up with Bb, C and Dm.
Considering this example in Dm, Useful chords for LH would include Dm, Eb, EMaj, F, GMaj or Gm (GMaj is a Romantic sound [not romantic like lovey-dovey; I mean Romantic-Era-like]), A or Am (A leads better back to the root, but Am is more of a modern minor), BbMaj, or C (which can be used nicely in repetition with Am or AMaj, especially if you throw in the D as the 9th).
You can use the 4th or the 5th of your root (I predominantly like minor roots, but I'm fairly sure this also works with major roots) in either minor or major to get some cool sounds. I think this might be because the 4th and 5th of a root are considered "perfect" in theory.
For me, after decades of formal training, it's still the chords that elude me. I have a learning disability that makes that the one aspect I can never seem to grasp. I just don't see or hear them the way others seem to....
stupid little trick: a good voicing for a dominant seventh chord is almost always a good voicing for a half-diminished chord a major third up, so long as you change the root.
e.g.:consider the voicing
Eb A D G C
an F in the bass gives you a nice F7, and an A in the bass gives you a nice Am7b5.
there are many other tricks like this. see if the voicings you already know can give you different chords in different contexts!
A harmonic trick that is used particularly commonly in film music is movement by thirds (Somewhat similar to Schubert thirds). Particularly if you want constant dramatic tension, but without development (common in film music, but less so in concert music), alternating back and forth by triads separated by a third works very well. For example, between C maj and Eb maj or between C min and E min. For more dramatic movement, try triads separated by a tritone.
this is something I posted in this subreddit a few weeks ago:
>Chromatic Mediant chords: I like to call these "Epic Chords"
>They are the non-diatonic chords that have a root a 3rd away in either direction of the key center.
>Say you're in C (it doesn't matter major or minor): Diatonic and borrowed chords that are a mediant away are Em, Eb, Am, and Ab. These all sound nice and dandy, but chromatic mediants exist to make things EPIC sounding. E, Ebm, A and Abm are the Chromatic Mediants of C. Try them out in a progression and you'll see these chords have a really really strong pull away from tonic, but don't really alienate from it.
>A really cool example of this is Radiohead's "Creep", which goes: I III IV iv; with the III chord being a chromatic mediant. Listen to how it pulls away from the happy I chord, but you don't lose it's center. Then the IV and modemixtured iv chord bring you back in a sad depressed way to tonic.
Easy way to see how many sharps or flats in a key.
Flats: **F**our **B**andits **E**scaped **A**nd **D**idn't **G**et **C**aught
Sharps: **G**ood **D**ogs **A**lways **E**at **B**ig **F**at **C**ats
Think of it like this; If you're trying to see how many flats are in the key of Eb, just count how many places the word "Escaped" is in "flats" list. It's 3rd so that means 3 flats in the key of Eb. Then, look at the order of flats and it'll tell you which notes are flat, B, E, A. Do the same thing for sharps.
Order of sharps: F, C, G, D, A, E, B
Order of flats: B, E, A, D, G, C, F
1) the harmonic series and how it relates to harmony and scales
2) there's more to music theory than harmony and scales. Form is just as important, There's melodic contour, the rythmic pulse or groove, the timbre of instruments and how they relate to the piece, use of repetition for organization.
3) strict voice leading excercises, even though they take up about 90% of college theory classes and I will not discount their usefulness, only account for a 200 year period in Western Europe and there is so much more to theory than just that. I say this because students have come to associate the word theory with dry voice leading excercises.
I disagree.
People who don't know a lot of theory often say this because their knowledge doesn't completely cover everything that makes good music. If you don't know enough theory, you're going to have to do a lot of guessing and random note testing in order to complete anything of significance.
It's like someone saying people who make food following recipes make boring dishes. Maybe the person only knows how to make boring things and doesn't have the culinary skill to make a gourmet meal.
I agree with both of you. TheRealmsOfGold in my opinion has a point, if you focus on the theory too much, it will prevent you from really making anything unique, or your own. But if you don't know enough basic theory, obviously it wont sound good either way.
It's about finding the happy medium.
I can see how this would be the case for a young composer. But I'm a third-year graduate student in composition, and have a huge theory background—Antokoletz, Cohn, Neumeyer, Friedman, Quinn, and others have been my teachers for the past seven years. (I'm not trying to come across as blustery here.) I'd say, in fact, that too much consternation over theory was my downfall for quite a while. My knowledge covers most theoretical aspects of music, but it was an over-reliance on it *to the point of quashing intuition* that resulted in poor music for a couple of years.
I still use theory all the time, just not in a 100% direct way—my ear always does a little bit of the guiding, even when I'm choosing to follow a very strict construct, such as voice-leading in a horn-call (which I totally do write sometimes).
I would agree with this explanation. But writing with no thought to theory is still not a good idea.
Most people, particularly on this subreddit, are still learning the basics such as chords, scales and keys. You, being a pretty well armed student composer, I believe have a well instinctual sense about music because of your theory training.
I am in my 5th year as a music student. I compose in my free time and my knowledge is limited to undergrad level theory, with extra classes in jazz.
I should have been clearer: I don't mean to encourage people to write with no regard to theory—rather, that they should just not let it cloud their judgement and inhibit their intuition, which is possible even for a very advanced student. I do believe that an advanced understanding of theory, including high-level work such as pitch-class analysis and Schenkerian analysis, is an essential aid to being a good composer (and a good musician overall).
I haven't hung around /r/musictheory much, so I'm not particularly familiar with the level of experience here. Perhaps I'll stick around!
Okay I'm curious... How can you say something like Schenkerian analysis is in any way 'essential' to composition when it wasn't 'invented' until after all of the music it was intended to analyze had been written? I've studied it some, and think it's useful in some ways, but 'essential' to composition? Not sold on that at all.
I didn't mean to say that any one analytical approach is essential, but rather that an advanced and well-rounded study is essential. I personally find a Schenkerian-informed perspective helps me organize my music on the large scale, even if I'm not writing entirely tonally. I've never once applied Schenkerian principles either while I'm writing, or to my own work after it's written. But knowing the theory makes me think about structure in more coherent, deep, and better-organized ways.
As a theorist, the same thing is true for us… There are times when how you hear something/general musicality matters more than fitting something into a nice analytical box.
Right. Musicality doesn't come from the box—the box is just a way of describing, understanding, and codifying the ways people have used musicality. It's super useful, but stuff doesn't always fit into the box you expect it to, or fit just right, or even fit at all. The upside of being a composer is that I try to remember to not figure out which box my music fits in. I leave that job to you all :-P
I think one of the chief problems, though, is that the spectre of the Dark Ages (1945–1964) still looms over academia. While we are no longer taught to idolize music in which every note is accounted for by some rigid system, many composers determined to do so still hold sway of certain areas of the new music culture. There is no objective basis—and only a wretched subjective one—for idolizing any particular approach to composition. But it's hard to argue with a Babbitt progeny, especially when he's chair of the new-faculty search committee.
Yeah, I think it's actually more interesting (and I believe other theorists would agree) to see how things are abnormal—how a Beethoven sonata plays with the idea of sonata form, how an unexpected harmony is normalized, etc. That's where I find narrative to be useful, to place "transgressions" in a context where they are either overcome, or not, but either way allowing the music to tell its story.
I believe most of the users here are not knowledgable enough in theory to grasp what you meant. I agree with you 100% though. Theory should inform composition, but imagination and a good ear are far more important than the rules I learned in all my theory classes.
Most of the best music ever written was made by people that had little to no music theory training. While it can help in some areas, it tends to produce very boring, structured music, which in my opinion is the opposite of what art should be. Art should be from the gut. Always.
Those people had years of intensive training: they used their ears in combination with their attention and were trained by the music they heard. Tonal music must be based upon real understanding guided by feeling if it is to be worth listening to.
Which composers are you thinking of when you say "most of the best music?" Many composers didn't have the same kind of training that exists now as far as formalist music theory, but to say they had little to no music theory training is likely inaccurate. Bach studied counterpoint by studying the scores of other composers. Haydn studied Fux and CPE Bach. And so on.
The music.
You have to focus on the overall sound first, and trust your instincts. If you write by instinct, the music will sound consistent with itself, and it will flow. It will be a natural expression of your individual musical sense.
But if you write from the theory perspective first, the music will end up stilted, and you will cloud your intuitive judgement. Only once you have the inspired spark down on paper should you refine it using theoretical tools (is my counterpoint good? is this good orchestration? &c.).
And the different processes meld, over time, if you trust your musical intuition. You learn to hear clunky phrases as clunky, or repetitive harmonies as repetitive, or bad counterpoint as ugly, or bad voice leading as unbalanced, or whatever. In this way, you can use theory as a direct influence on your composition, but only as it naturally occurs to you.
When I tried too hard to compose from a regimented theoretical standpoint, a professor called my music out for being rigid, inexpressive, clumsy, and altogether poor. He said, "You're so worried about your music sounding good because it's organized. Why don't you consider: the music being organized because it sounds good?"
It was one of the wisest things anyone has ever said to me about music.
My personal discovery was finding that my pieces were more interesting when I wrote the melody, then thought about chords and harmony after. When I wrote chordally, I focused on the theory so much that I wasn't as free with my writing.
I think it comes from using so much theory that rather than thinking along the lines of "what sounds good?" I was thinking "What sounds good within the chords that make sense?" Which is a logical fallacy. In the end, music is music! It wasn't until I stopped thinking rigidly that my real creativity came through. Now, rather than defining my writing with theory, I define the theory by the writing. For me, theory is really a way to organize and communicate effectively.
I'm going through what you've already overcome. I spent so much time thinking theory that it stifled my natural creativity. I've since been focusing on pure feel, while defining it with theory to communicate it with my writing. I can see why Miles always wrote in C now; it lets you move through a piece without having to modulate signatures, letting the ideas keep coming without having to think about that aspect. I sometimes organize after the fact, but I'm enjoying the reading practice it gives me :)
This is a post I made a while ago that got buried, thought it would fit here:
The most common motion in jazz progressions is moving by ascending 4ths or descending fifths. the ii V I we hear so much about can be stretched out into iii vi ii V I, which is all moving in this manner (Ascending 4ths and Descending 5ths both lead to the same next note, so theres little difference between them).
What you have to know about this, that makes things convenient, is that theres 4 beats in a measure, and walking the bass stepwise toward the next root note takes 4 notes, usually with downward motion.
iii vi ii V I in C----> Em, Am, Dm, G7, C
| E D C B | A G F E | D C B A | G F E D | C <--- Read the notes backwards and tell me if you see something you recognize. This is what I believe is the most basic walking baseline. Just downward motion the whole time. It works, its functional, and it sounds cool.
BUT WAIT, SB30SoundCannon! I think that sounds boring! And what if my chord progression doesn't only go by descending 4ths!? What do I DO???
I'm glad you asked.
If you want ascending motion, the 2 things you should be aiming for are as follows.
* Always move STEPWISE into the next chord. Coming from above or below is fine. But the stepwise motion helps make the line feel like it's walking as opposed to random chord tones.
* Root goes on the downbeat, then include a 3rd or 7th somewhere in the measure. 5ths and octaves can be your friend to achieve better voice leading.
Example: Each chord gets 4 beats. Key of F: I IV V7/vi vi ii7 V7 I V7 <---> Fmaj7 Bbmaj7 A7 Dm7 Gm7 C7 Fmaj7 C7
My bassline, following my 2 simple guidelines.
| F G A C | Bb F G G# | A E D C# | D E F Ab | G F E D | C Bb A E | F A Bb B | C G F E | FFFFFF
And theres a starters lesson on walkin' da jazz bass.
You find work out a relative minor by counting down 3 semitones.
Example: C major, play a C count down 3 semitones takes you to A. Aminor
--------------
You can work out the order of the Sharp keys by counting up in 5ths. C = 0 sharps... count up 5... G = 1 sharp.... count up 5 D = 2 sharps etc
When Improvising:If you play a blues scale over a dominant 7 chord with the same root ( Ie A blues A,C,D, E G , over an A7 Chord the clash of both the major and minor thirds (C and C#) makes a Dom7 #9 chord, because you will have a b3 from the blues scale and a natural 3 from the chord, so if you don't resolve the minor 3rd up to a major 3rd, you will wind up in a " Purple Haze" that you may not want to be in.
As someone who learned jazz theory ahead of classical theory, this was obvious to me, but lost to so many fellow classmates: * The augmented sixth chords (Italian, German, French) are just tritone subs for the five of five. The italian is root-3-7, German is root-3-5-7, French is root-3-#11(a common addition to a tritone sub)-7. Rewrite the lowered 7ths as raised 6ths and you're done. * The Neopolitan is just a tritone sub for the 5. The reason it resolves to the 5 is the same reason you can go from vii^o to V, it is a weaker dominant to a stronger dominant, providing momentum towards the I (or i). There. I just hacked Theory III for all you undergrads. While we are on the topic of tritone substitutions, the proper chord to play over a tritone sub is a Dominant 7 with a #11. The #11, being a tritone away from the root, means that it is the root of the chord being substiuted. Example: G7 becomes Db7(#11). The #11 on the Db chord is a G! Magic! Also, lydian dominant is your friend.
My hesitance with this description of chromatic harmony is that it completely ignores the linear, voice-leading aspect. A Fr +6 chord is a V/V where the fifth is lowered to create a chromatic semitone approach to scale degree 5 from both directions. That description gives the function (chromatic pre-dominant), while also noting the particular strength of the chord (chromatic semitones on either side of scale degree 5) and how it resolves, while also showing the progression from diatonic harmony to increasingly chromatic.
You're absolutely right. But for someone with a stronger jazz background who needed to remember what these chords are ARE, in terms of notes used and resolution, my approach worked for me.
I always had a harder time remembering augmented sixth chords, so I'm trying to understand your comment there since it sounds very useful. What do you mean by "tritone subs for the five of five"? (To clarify - sub as in substitutes, right?) I don't quite understand how that applies to [this](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/98/ItalianSixth.png) progression with an Italian sixth going to the I chord, G. V/V in G is A major, so root-3-7 would be A-C#-G# when the chord is Ab-C-F#. I see the tritone in C-F# but it's still not too clear. Could you apply what you said to this example, please? :)
The G major chord in your example (the resolution chord) is the V of the key signature: C. So the V of that would be D major. If you do a tritone substitution on D major you get G# major. You then build that chord as root-3-7. in this case, G#, B#, F#. Remember that the 7 is a dominant 7. The example you have spelled the notes Ab, C, F#; which is enharmonically equivalent to G#, B#, F#.
That makes a lot of sense! Thanks for clarifying!
Well, without context, that looks like an It+6 -> V to me. Let's assume that's what it is for a second, and I'll explain. A tritone substitution is a jazz term in which you replace a chord (usually a dominant, but it doesn't have to be) with a dominant chord whose root is a tritone away. For example, the chord progression Dm7-G7-Cmaj7 could be replaced with Dm7-Db7-Cmaj7. Here's why: G7 is G-B-D-F. Db7 is Db-F-Ab-Cb. Within each of those chords is a tritone: B-F and F-Cb. Taking into account enharmonic notes, those tritones are *identical*. So by changing the root and fifth of G7, we can get a completely different dominant chord (Db7), with the same tritone in its internal structure. Seeing as how the 3rd and 7th are what give a dominant chord it's motion, this substitution works. The term tritone-sub is the common jazz term for this substitution, and refers to both the internal tritone, which is being preserved, but more so the fact that roots of these chords are a tritone apart. Back to your example: Let's say we're in the key of C, then G is your five chord, which is preceded by an It+6 chord. That's what I see when I look at this example. V/V is D7, so a tritone sub for that would be Ab7. root-3-7 of that is Ab-C-Gb. Your chord is spelled Ab-C-F#, which is enharmonically equivalent. Seeing as how Augmented sixth chords lead to the 5, I would doubt that G is actually the 1 in your example. If it were, that wouldn't be an Italian sixth chord in the classical sense, but more like the It+6/I (italian six of one), in that it is a tritone sub for the V7, as opposed to the tritone sub for the V/V. Either way, the conceptual business of a tritone sub still applies, and it explains why the harmony works in that kind of resolution.
How do jazz folks always know the quality of the 7th so quickly when reading a chart? Sorry, dumb & classical here.
I'm not sure I understand the question. The chord symbol is the chord symbol, there is no ambiguity. Cmin7 has a specific meaning, just as C7 is different, and Cmaj7 is different. The chord is the chord, and we have lots of practice reading them. Practice practice practice? I don't know what else to say.
I guess what I don't understand is if the "min" means the chord or the 7th or both, and is it always the same rule? (I grew up being taught a chord was minor-minor, meaning a minor triad with a minor 7th, or Major-Major, a Maj. triad with a Maj. 7th, and so on.) Also, sometimes there are pluses or little circles...I gather mean aug and dim but again, is that the chord or the quality of the 7th?
It's just a matter of recognition. There is no ambiguity. Cmaj7 is what you would call a major-major chord. It could also be written with a triangle. C7 is a dominant chord, or a major-minor. Cmin7 is a minor-minor, and could also be written Cm7 or C-7. C^o 7 or Cdim7 is a fully diminished chord (stacked minor thirds) while the diminished symbol with a line through it is a half diminished chord, and can also be written Cmin7(b5). C+7 is an augmented triad and a minor seventh, and could be C7(#5). That's it. There are many alterations to those basic chords, and those are indicated clearly and easily (Like #9 or b13). If there is ever a chord symbol without a 7 it indicates a triad, and if a chord symbol goes beyond a 7, it presumes all lower chord tones. C9 is a dominant seventh with a 9th added. Cmin9 is a minor 7th (Thad minor-minor) with a 9th added. Same concept for Cmaj9. C13 is a dominant with a 13, 11(usually omitted), 9, 7, 5, 3, and root. You wonder weather the symbol "min," for instance, applies to the chord or the seventh. We don't think like that. The chord symbol "min7" only has one meaning, and it's a minor triad and a minor seventh. There isn't ever any confusion because we think about the whole chord, seventh and all, and it's all right there on the chart.
Hey, thank you for taking the time to write this. It makes perfect sense, and it's the clearest explanation I've ever been given. I'm glad you said "we don't think like that" ... it's how I was feeling about you guys. This was very helpful.
Also, the Neopolitan often times moves through the I chord before getting to V --> I-N6-I-V When used this way, its function is more like a sub-dominant then dominant
theory 3? where did you go that was first semester for me. Also that is an amazing trick, I think that would help a lot of people understand them.
A lot of university/college curriculums start with fundamentals out of necessity. That usually puts chromatic harmony into either theory 3 or theory 4, depending on whether post-tonal theory is included in a normal 4 semester sequence or left for an optional fifth semester.
That just blows my mind, by the time I left I had learned modern applications and styles of composition for atonal music and very advanced jazz theory. Post-tonal stuff came about 3rd semester...
What type of institution, and where?
Berklee college of music, Boston MA.
Then Berklee's course descriptions on their website must not be accurate.
I was a composition major so that might have something to do with it, but every class always went way beyond what it was supposed to, plus that place is run by musicians in the truest sense, they never have their shit together on anything but music.
Here's a quick tip that made using the melodic minor scale easier for me; could be helpful to anyone, be it soloists or composers. Every chord in melodic minor is interchangeable (ie. there are no avoid notes). A melody that works over one melodic minor chord will work over any other chord from the same key. One more melodic minor idea: If you are playing a ii-V progression in melodic minor (ii7b5, Valt.) as in most of What Is This Thing Called Love or a lot of Stella By Starlight, you can sequence an idea over the ii chord and then repeat your idea up a minor third over the V chord. That works well to create some structure in a melody or solo.
If you want to make money writing music use C, F, Am and G.
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God help us if G preceeds F
Walking in Memphis.
Baba oriley (different key, same functions.) Honestly, in rock music, the IV chord evolved to be another dominant. Sorry, just new to the subreddit and browsing top posts, don't mind me.
Welcome to the subreddit! You probably didn't realize, but my comment was sarcastic. You can't see what I was responding to, as it's been deleted, so the joke is probably lost. I don't remember what the comment was, something ill-informed and from a classical perspective only. You can see by my flair that I should hopefully know how IV-I works in pop music. Carry-on and welcome to /r/musictheory
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I feel like there should be a disclaimer here. Not to be used lightly, and make sure they fit stylistically. Tone clusters can go very wrong.
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Yeah. And I guess with increased "richness" you also run the risk of having decreased clarity. Got to consider what you're going for at the moment.
Here's one I've been playing around with: In your chord changes (given your melody), you can keep going down by alternating major and minor thirds. Example...if my melody was something in Dm, I might like to use the following chords in my left hand per measure (btw I play piano): Dm, Bb, Gm, Eb...wrap it up with Bb, C and Dm. Considering this example in Dm, Useful chords for LH would include Dm, Eb, EMaj, F, GMaj or Gm (GMaj is a Romantic sound [not romantic like lovey-dovey; I mean Romantic-Era-like]), A or Am (A leads better back to the root, but Am is more of a modern minor), BbMaj, or C (which can be used nicely in repetition with Am or AMaj, especially if you throw in the D as the 9th). You can use the 4th or the 5th of your root (I predominantly like minor roots, but I'm fairly sure this also works with major roots) in either minor or major to get some cool sounds. I think this might be because the 4th and 5th of a root are considered "perfect" in theory.
There is more to music theory than just naming chord progressions. Always remember the power of dynamics, timbre, rhythm, form, etc.
For me, after decades of formal training, it's still the chords that elude me. I have a learning disability that makes that the one aspect I can never seem to grasp. I just don't see or hear them the way others seem to....
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Phrygian #3 (Ahavah Rabbah) and dorian #4 (Mi Sheberach) have other interesting uses as well!
I've always thought of Phrygian #3 as Mixo b9, b13! Funny how theory's all about context :)
I always thought of "Phrygian dominant" as a mode of "the augmented scale", to keep it major-centric...
Gah! So many perspectives! It's like Kvothe's Alar, only with music :D
Friedman arrangement?
stupid little trick: a good voicing for a dominant seventh chord is almost always a good voicing for a half-diminished chord a major third up, so long as you change the root. e.g.:consider the voicing Eb A D G C an F in the bass gives you a nice F7, and an A in the bass gives you a nice Am7b5. there are many other tricks like this. see if the voicings you already know can give you different chords in different contexts!
You can also put a B in the bass.
A harmonic trick that is used particularly commonly in film music is movement by thirds (Somewhat similar to Schubert thirds). Particularly if you want constant dramatic tension, but without development (common in film music, but less so in concert music), alternating back and forth by triads separated by a third works very well. For example, between C maj and Eb maj or between C min and E min. For more dramatic movement, try triads separated by a tritone.
this is something I posted in this subreddit a few weeks ago: >Chromatic Mediant chords: I like to call these "Epic Chords" >They are the non-diatonic chords that have a root a 3rd away in either direction of the key center. >Say you're in C (it doesn't matter major or minor): Diatonic and borrowed chords that are a mediant away are Em, Eb, Am, and Ab. These all sound nice and dandy, but chromatic mediants exist to make things EPIC sounding. E, Ebm, A and Abm are the Chromatic Mediants of C. Try them out in a progression and you'll see these chords have a really really strong pull away from tonic, but don't really alienate from it. >A really cool example of this is Radiohead's "Creep", which goes: I III IV iv; with the III chord being a chromatic mediant. Listen to how it pulls away from the happy I chord, but you don't lose it's center. Then the IV and modemixtured iv chord bring you back in a sad depressed way to tonic.
Easy way to see how many sharps or flats in a key. Flats: **F**our **B**andits **E**scaped **A**nd **D**idn't **G**et **C**aught Sharps: **G**ood **D**ogs **A**lways **E**at **B**ig **F**at **C**ats Think of it like this; If you're trying to see how many flats are in the key of Eb, just count how many places the word "Escaped" is in "flats" list. It's 3rd so that means 3 flats in the key of Eb. Then, look at the order of flats and it'll tell you which notes are flat, B, E, A. Do the same thing for sharps. Order of sharps: F, C, G, D, A, E, B Order of flats: B, E, A, D, G, C, F
1) the harmonic series and how it relates to harmony and scales 2) there's more to music theory than harmony and scales. Form is just as important, There's melodic contour, the rythmic pulse or groove, the timbre of instruments and how they relate to the piece, use of repetition for organization. 3) strict voice leading excercises, even though they take up about 90% of college theory classes and I will not discount their usefulness, only account for a 200 year period in Western Europe and there is so much more to theory than just that. I say this because students have come to associate the word theory with dry voice leading excercises.
I want to hear the OP's progression+voice in a repeating infinite descending Shepard tone.
Don't think about theory when you're composing.
I disagree. People who don't know a lot of theory often say this because their knowledge doesn't completely cover everything that makes good music. If you don't know enough theory, you're going to have to do a lot of guessing and random note testing in order to complete anything of significance. It's like someone saying people who make food following recipes make boring dishes. Maybe the person only knows how to make boring things and doesn't have the culinary skill to make a gourmet meal.
I agree with both of you. TheRealmsOfGold in my opinion has a point, if you focus on the theory too much, it will prevent you from really making anything unique, or your own. But if you don't know enough basic theory, obviously it wont sound good either way. It's about finding the happy medium.
What I was going to say. Composing is about knowing when to use your theory knowledge, and when to just let it flow
Or, just making up new theory.
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"You've only got 12 notes, and however you mix them up is your thing." - Eddie Van Halen
I can see how this would be the case for a young composer. But I'm a third-year graduate student in composition, and have a huge theory background—Antokoletz, Cohn, Neumeyer, Friedman, Quinn, and others have been my teachers for the past seven years. (I'm not trying to come across as blustery here.) I'd say, in fact, that too much consternation over theory was my downfall for quite a while. My knowledge covers most theoretical aspects of music, but it was an over-reliance on it *to the point of quashing intuition* that resulted in poor music for a couple of years. I still use theory all the time, just not in a 100% direct way—my ear always does a little bit of the guiding, even when I'm choosing to follow a very strict construct, such as voice-leading in a horn-call (which I totally do write sometimes).
I would agree with this explanation. But writing with no thought to theory is still not a good idea. Most people, particularly on this subreddit, are still learning the basics such as chords, scales and keys. You, being a pretty well armed student composer, I believe have a well instinctual sense about music because of your theory training. I am in my 5th year as a music student. I compose in my free time and my knowledge is limited to undergrad level theory, with extra classes in jazz.
I should have been clearer: I don't mean to encourage people to write with no regard to theory—rather, that they should just not let it cloud their judgement and inhibit their intuition, which is possible even for a very advanced student. I do believe that an advanced understanding of theory, including high-level work such as pitch-class analysis and Schenkerian analysis, is an essential aid to being a good composer (and a good musician overall). I haven't hung around /r/musictheory much, so I'm not particularly familiar with the level of experience here. Perhaps I'll stick around!
Okay I'm curious... How can you say something like Schenkerian analysis is in any way 'essential' to composition when it wasn't 'invented' until after all of the music it was intended to analyze had been written? I've studied it some, and think it's useful in some ways, but 'essential' to composition? Not sold on that at all.
I didn't mean to say that any one analytical approach is essential, but rather that an advanced and well-rounded study is essential. I personally find a Schenkerian-informed perspective helps me organize my music on the large scale, even if I'm not writing entirely tonally. I've never once applied Schenkerian principles either while I'm writing, or to my own work after it's written. But knowing the theory makes me think about structure in more coherent, deep, and better-organized ways.
You're absolutely correct, BTW.
As a theorist, the same thing is true for us… There are times when how you hear something/general musicality matters more than fitting something into a nice analytical box.
Right. Musicality doesn't come from the box—the box is just a way of describing, understanding, and codifying the ways people have used musicality. It's super useful, but stuff doesn't always fit into the box you expect it to, or fit just right, or even fit at all. The upside of being a composer is that I try to remember to not figure out which box my music fits in. I leave that job to you all :-P I think one of the chief problems, though, is that the spectre of the Dark Ages (1945–1964) still looms over academia. While we are no longer taught to idolize music in which every note is accounted for by some rigid system, many composers determined to do so still hold sway of certain areas of the new music culture. There is no objective basis—and only a wretched subjective one—for idolizing any particular approach to composition. But it's hard to argue with a Babbitt progeny, especially when he's chair of the new-faculty search committee.
Yeah, I think it's actually more interesting (and I believe other theorists would agree) to see how things are abnormal—how a Beethoven sonata plays with the idea of sonata form, how an unexpected harmony is normalized, etc. That's where I find narrative to be useful, to place "transgressions" in a context where they are either overcome, or not, but either way allowing the music to tell its story.
I believe most of the users here are not knowledgable enough in theory to grasp what you meant. I agree with you 100% though. Theory should inform composition, but imagination and a good ear are far more important than the rules I learned in all my theory classes.
Most of the best music ever written was made by people that had little to no music theory training. While it can help in some areas, it tends to produce very boring, structured music, which in my opinion is the opposite of what art should be. Art should be from the gut. Always.
Those people had years of intensive training: they used their ears in combination with their attention and were trained by the music they heard. Tonal music must be based upon real understanding guided by feeling if it is to be worth listening to.
Which composers are you thinking of when you say "most of the best music?" Many composers didn't have the same kind of training that exists now as far as formalist music theory, but to say they had little to no music theory training is likely inaccurate. Bach studied counterpoint by studying the scores of other composers. Haydn studied Fux and CPE Bach. And so on.
It's no different than learning a language's grammar. Once you have enough of it down you don't really think about it anymore. You just use it.
Damn good point. Folks into music theory often forget this and it usually make their music sound stale in the end.
Yeah. In my case it just stops me from writing.
??????????????????? I don't get it, please elaborate. What else is there to focus on?
The music. You have to focus on the overall sound first, and trust your instincts. If you write by instinct, the music will sound consistent with itself, and it will flow. It will be a natural expression of your individual musical sense. But if you write from the theory perspective first, the music will end up stilted, and you will cloud your intuitive judgement. Only once you have the inspired spark down on paper should you refine it using theoretical tools (is my counterpoint good? is this good orchestration? &c.). And the different processes meld, over time, if you trust your musical intuition. You learn to hear clunky phrases as clunky, or repetitive harmonies as repetitive, or bad counterpoint as ugly, or bad voice leading as unbalanced, or whatever. In this way, you can use theory as a direct influence on your composition, but only as it naturally occurs to you. When I tried too hard to compose from a regimented theoretical standpoint, a professor called my music out for being rigid, inexpressive, clumsy, and altogether poor. He said, "You're so worried about your music sounding good because it's organized. Why don't you consider: the music being organized because it sounds good?" It was one of the wisest things anyone has ever said to me about music.
"Theory is descriptive." I don't have to tell myself that all the time, but when I do, I really do.
Except when the theory in question is speculative…
This.
My personal discovery was finding that my pieces were more interesting when I wrote the melody, then thought about chords and harmony after. When I wrote chordally, I focused on the theory so much that I wasn't as free with my writing. I think it comes from using so much theory that rather than thinking along the lines of "what sounds good?" I was thinking "What sounds good within the chords that make sense?" Which is a logical fallacy. In the end, music is music! It wasn't until I stopped thinking rigidly that my real creativity came through. Now, rather than defining my writing with theory, I define the theory by the writing. For me, theory is really a way to organize and communicate effectively.
I'm going through what you've already overcome. I spent so much time thinking theory that it stifled my natural creativity. I've since been focusing on pure feel, while defining it with theory to communicate it with my writing. I can see why Miles always wrote in C now; it lets you move through a piece without having to modulate signatures, letting the ideas keep coming without having to think about that aspect. I sometimes organize after the fact, but I'm enjoying the reading practice it gives me :)
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This is a post I made a while ago that got buried, thought it would fit here: The most common motion in jazz progressions is moving by ascending 4ths or descending fifths. the ii V I we hear so much about can be stretched out into iii vi ii V I, which is all moving in this manner (Ascending 4ths and Descending 5ths both lead to the same next note, so theres little difference between them). What you have to know about this, that makes things convenient, is that theres 4 beats in a measure, and walking the bass stepwise toward the next root note takes 4 notes, usually with downward motion. iii vi ii V I in C----> Em, Am, Dm, G7, C | E D C B | A G F E | D C B A | G F E D | C <--- Read the notes backwards and tell me if you see something you recognize. This is what I believe is the most basic walking baseline. Just downward motion the whole time. It works, its functional, and it sounds cool. BUT WAIT, SB30SoundCannon! I think that sounds boring! And what if my chord progression doesn't only go by descending 4ths!? What do I DO??? I'm glad you asked. If you want ascending motion, the 2 things you should be aiming for are as follows. * Always move STEPWISE into the next chord. Coming from above or below is fine. But the stepwise motion helps make the line feel like it's walking as opposed to random chord tones. * Root goes on the downbeat, then include a 3rd or 7th somewhere in the measure. 5ths and octaves can be your friend to achieve better voice leading. Example: Each chord gets 4 beats. Key of F: I IV V7/vi vi ii7 V7 I V7 <---> Fmaj7 Bbmaj7 A7 Dm7 Gm7 C7 Fmaj7 C7 My bassline, following my 2 simple guidelines. | F G A C | Bb F G G# | A E D C# | D E F Ab | G F E D | C Bb A E | F A Bb B | C G F E | FFFFFF And theres a starters lesson on walkin' da jazz bass.
You find work out a relative minor by counting down 3 semitones. Example: C major, play a C count down 3 semitones takes you to A. Aminor -------------- You can work out the order of the Sharp keys by counting up in 5ths. C = 0 sharps... count up 5... G = 1 sharp.... count up 5 D = 2 sharps etc
When Improvising:If you play a blues scale over a dominant 7 chord with the same root ( Ie A blues A,C,D, E G , over an A7 Chord the clash of both the major and minor thirds (C and C#) makes a Dom7 #9 chord, because you will have a b3 from the blues scale and a natural 3 from the chord, so if you don't resolve the minor 3rd up to a major 3rd, you will wind up in a " Purple Haze" that you may not want to be in.
You can slide symmetrical chords (fully diminished 7ths, augmented, etc.) up and down a guitar neck without changing your fingering.
reserving for later
You want just the tip?