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Chord Progression Question
Ok maybe a bit of a clickbait... but I am way more drawn to power chords, sus chord and add 9 chords. for some reason the minor/major chords always either feel too emotional on whatever spectrum theyre on.
I am curious though, because i dont want to just sound like boards of canada. How do i incorporate major / minor chords without it getting overly melodramatic. i do want to incorporate them but they feel slightly too colourful for lack of a better phrase.
Piano instrument.
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It's a weird fascination we have to write what we don't feel like writing. If you feel like using the sus2 and sus4 chords do it. Eventually you'll naturally see the need for minor or major chords (or maybe you'll do fine without them). Embrace the uniqueness of what the birds are telling you to play. Do you feel stuck in a song?
I generally feel stuck in expression. I do use major and minor, it’s just I don’t want to use them all the time. But , if I am writing and alternating between them I don’t feel like I am creating much of a song. A minor, G major, C major, E minor, repeat. Variation of those chords. Etc etc. it feels like the chords are just existing.
Another way of saying what I mean is: pick any 4 chords out of all chords possible in c major (simple triads). Loop it and create a sense of contrast through composition. Do that for every new song you make. Repeat that same process of randomly choosing major or minor chord.
I’m being simplistic and of course I love writing music and making music, and I don’t think it’s that simple. But it feels like if I make very minory or majory music I feel like they start sounding kinda samey. (If in same key).
maybe write proper songs instead of just chord progressions?
Can you elaborate on this please?
A chord progression is just that, a chord progression. And there are many songs with the same chord progression in the same key that sound totally different A full song would (usually) also have a melody, a tempo, maybe percussion, vocals, which means lyrics (all of that depending on the genre). And even if you just play the piano, then surely you have a melody you’re playing alongside the chords?
When you just write chord progressions, it’s probably kind of boring. But, as the other person said, a chord progression is not a song.
Idk what instrument you use but try playing half the measure as a Dsus2, then switch to a D major.
Maybe look into counterpoint if you haven't, it can give a different perspective on harmony
+1 for species counterpoint—it can really improve your awareness of how different lines fit together.
u/personanonymous, I also think it's worth checking out Tchaikovsky's harmony book (PDF on archive.org); it's given me so many new ideas for voice leading within chord progressions.
I mean I agree that chord progressions on their own can sound kind of same-y, but that's what the melody is for -- not to mention the rhythms, arrangement decisions, harmonies, and all the other stuff that makes music unique! I wonder if you're kind of expecting "too much" from the chord progression itself. I think of the chord progression as the bread of a sandwich, or the rice at the bottom of a curry dish -- you want those basic ingredients to be good, of course, but it shouldn't be the most interesting part.
But that will be the same even if you use power chords or suspended chords. Sooner or later you'll get that same "it's a repetition" vibe.
I think you should expand your music listening to different styles where they "break" conventions. You got to remember that just because a major scale follows X pattern, you are absolutely free to change anything on it. However, you'll always end up with either something suspended, major, minor or diminished, you can't really run from that when writing chords or full harmonies unless all instrumental is soloing. And even then, you'd need a base for the solo to make sense
What you might be lacking is how to put "flavors" on your stuff. Experiment more, use chromatism, put that weird diminished chord where it wasn't supposed to be, end the minor song with a major tonic or vice versa. Expand your horizons!
I know you said you have a sense or contrast, but I bet you need more contrast. It seems like you're stuck in harmony in the rhythm section and play/sing a melody over it. Harmony can also be used to enhance the melody. You can use the same timbre as the lead and have a nice choral blend. You can use harmony in call and response with the lead melody or with percussion. You can leave out harmony for an extended period.
I did reread your question, and think I misunderstood it at first. Just experiment with those chords. There's no secret.
Get a synth. Change up the sounds.
That's because four chords do not make a song. A melody does. A melody is supported by the chords, and if you make it secondary then of course your compositions sound the same. Choosing a bunch of chords with extensions is giving you some of those notes a melody line would hit naturally but i think the problem here isn't the chords but how you're utilizing them
Thing is let’s say I want to write an ambient track alright. I have a melody and it has 6 notes and a nice melodic line.
But now I want it to be big and lush, I stack chords on top of my melody line and that’s the song. Is that insufficient? How am I supposed to be thinking about them?
big and lush is gonna have do do more with voicing and timbre than chord quality. if each song is a six note melody that repeats, then yeah i'd say that's probably insufficient. that's not a song, it's a rap beat, which is fine if that's what you're going for
min7 for diluted minor and like maj6/maj9 for sameish effect in major chords? Just what I do. Generally chord extensions help with making it less all dramatic for me. Voicings matter as well. Arpeggios and stuff, melody and what degrees does it hit. So I wouldn't really look at the chords in a vacuum.
voicing helps a lot here. Assuming you are playing guitar, try limiting the amount of notes. Dyads between two strings can have a very different effect than a full 6 string triad. Try just 10ths alone. More generally, limit yourself to playing only two note at a time and what you can come up with.
Inversions too have a very different emotional quality. Major chords in first inversion in particular, such as a low E with a G and C on top can feel emotionally nuanced.
Last, try suspensions. Play an open Seventh and resolve to a Sixth.
We are so saturated with extended chords these days that we can develop stigmas against triads, especially when they are voiced in cliche ways. Like another poster said, developing your own taste and sense of discernment is exactly what gives your writing its unique flair. However, every musical tool should be able to inform your writing in some capacity, even those which seem trite or cliche.
This sounds like a voicing issue and not anything to do with major / minor chords.
this post triggers me on quite a few levels i must admit.
But try doing what you want and see how it works for you. Trust me you want to work with major and minor.
Also when starting out augmented and diminished chords will require a lot of theory to make them work.
Most people when they start out with theory have all these ideas on how they can use basic music theory to create something never seen before, and i was guilty of that too, but as i said, try and learn trough the process.
Starting to use theory more creatively will lead to you expanding on your harmonic vocabulary and becoming a better musician so just go for it
Write what sounds good .....
People say don't use 2nds or 7ths but that's nearly the entire foundation of jazz
Don't use tritones yet that's the foundation of horror
https://blogs.wdav.org/2019/10/the-tritone-interval-and-its-use-in-horror-films/#:~:text=The%20tritone%2C%20through%20its%20dissonance,embody%20the%20monster%20or%20Otherness.
Don't write consecutive 5ths yet there's times that's okay too
https://youtu.be/Qmed3oqjeXk?si=jWEE4OKsEi9EZ8Vr
Write what you think the song needs.... Take a week away relisten and adjust the parts that don't work
Everyone has their own style and your developing yours
Without knowing what instrument you’re playing or what you’ve tried so far, maybe different, more spread-out voicings of major and minor chords would be more interesting to you? If you’re just playing basic triads I can see how they might sound a little too plain or direct.
Are you just holding pads for these chords? Listen to how like Ray Charles plays chords within bluesy licks for instance
You should check chord inversions, bass movements and other functional harmony basics. Your harmonic vocabulary probably needs to be extended even before you reach chord extensions. From inversions to secondary dominants, to all the possibilities within tonality.
7ths are a natural way out of plain major and minor chords, if we’re talking about flavor, then as you become more sophisticated you might start adding other extensions. But first you need a solid basis on the possibilities within the “plain” chords tonality, that are more than you believe.
Chord inversions are massively underrated specially in American jazz and pop based culture, but they’ve been the cornerstone of Western, let’s say European, harmony from Gregorian chants on.
Many songs dont use those chords at all, so try what works, you can use a 6/9, maj7,m7 or add 9 as a tonic for example
i think that's really cool actually. you could try using a tonnetz chart to voice lead between any kind of triad regardless of scale (deleted extra portion of this since it isn't necessary)
Frank Zappa sometimes avoided thirds, often using the major second instead of a third, perhaps in open voicing more like a 9, but without a third.
Might be something to look into. I'm pretty sure there are articles, videos, and even scholarly papers on Zappa's use of seconds instead of thirds. There's probably something on the topic somewhere here: https://www.zappa-analysis.com/index.html Googling Zappa "2 chords" returns possible leads.
One recommendation I can offer is to abandon the diatonic 7 note scale as the starting point, and use the melodic minor and its modes. You’ll get some different sounds than the generic minor/major you are trying to break out of.
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What makes you think that? If you wanna compose music for a concert, film, or game setting, music theory is really crucial skill
Get a dog.
It's easy, don't play the third. There's a lot you can do by playing around and omitting certain notes, like if you are playing in E but you don't use G# or D#. There's a reason rock, especially metal, mostly use power chords, specifically the root, 5th and octave.
Yeah, and these power chords, sus chords and add9 chords tend to sound pretty empty. You can write a piece around them, and this has been done especially in Jazz. But it's much more difficult to not make your piece sound monotone and samey.
A better solution might be to use 7th chords instead.