# Need help with chords



## sammyooba

I need to compose some songs for a script of mine, so I came back to music composing.

What I know.. -
I took about 1 semester of music theory but spend like everyday at the school's piano and mess around composing random stuff :lol:. So thus, I don't know common music theory terms or rules, but I think I'm an okay composer.

A problem I'm running into is .. I am trying to meet 2 conditions for a song:

-Beautiful Chords Progressions only (explained at bottom)
-variety

I noticed the most beautiful chords progressions are when the chords are (4 or 8), (5 or 7), or 6 mini-steps from the previous chord.

Examples of what I'm talking about

(4 - 8) I -> iii
(5 - 7) I -> IV or I -> V 
(6 - 6) (Bb - D - F) -> (E - G# - B) [This one sounds like pure gold in my opinion]

So I pretty much have only 4 ways to progress in chords, which is kinda no variety, which is where my problem is, I can't stay in the same key unless I want variety. I have to be adding sharps and flats or it'll just be the same chords looping over. I tried making a song based on just using these chord progressions. Everything sounds nice except it sounds Atonal. 

Since I only took 1 music theory class, I am not sure on how to add sharps and flats into a key works without changing the key totally. And I need to be adding sharps and flats in order to be meeting the amount of mini steps I need from the previous chord to meet the conditions of having a beautiful chord and having variety.

So if anybody can give me a rundown on how to do this, I'd be grateful, thanks.

--

I know many might think that music is about expression and not just about beauty, but for my purposes, I am aiming for purefully beautiful songs as my script is about a perfectly beautiful world with no flaws :lol:


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## ricardo_jvc6

What you mean? You want Chords from I III V Intervals? its because its hard to read the post you made


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## sammyooba

I suck at explaining things

I'm guessing this sounded confusing?

"(4 - 8) I -> iii
(5 - 7) I -> IV or I -> V 
(6 - 6) (Bb - D - F) -> (E - G# - B) [This one sounds like pure gold in my opinion]"

The numbers in the parenthesis represent the mini steps to progress to next chord. I put them in pairs because when you add them up, you get 12.

Like say an example of the (6 - 6) in C major from I chord (C - E - G) is to go to 6 mini steps from the note C which goes to F#, and then make a major or minor chord based on F# -
(F# - A# - C#).

This will sound pretty epic and beautiful, but then it's not in C major anymore. I don't know how to work these # and flats as well as I should. The problem I need help with is to try to stay in the same major and sounding tonal while only using the most beautiful chord progressions possible without being to repetitive.
*I don't even know if it's possible. I usually use these progressions; but then to stay tonal, I usually have to use a bunch of other boring sounding chords that just sounds like it's taking up 'space'. I want to try to take out all those boring sounding chords.

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## ricardo_jvc6

All Intervals, whatever you use... like (II - VII) or (V - IV) or (III - VI).. The Intervals need to give 9. The Mini Intervals are in a Chromatique Scale since chromatique uses 12 Intervals. I bet you're using that, am I right? Using Sharps and Flats helps alot with the Chords, you need to make the chords add harmony by them selfs matching up the Intervals, remember all of them need to give "9".


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## sammyooba

So if I want to sharp or flat, I need to make sure preceding or following chord will make it = 9 to stay in key.

Let me try.. In C major (Bb - D - F) [7 chord right? Not sure) -> (D - F - A) [2 chord] 7+2 = 9

Sounds like a I -> iii in Bb major and not C major so I guess I'm doing this wrong.

Hmm, since I don't know much music theory, I'm not sure what is classified as what chord when it comes to sharping and flatting

I guess if you can get me a rundown on this also lol

--

In C Major

( Bb - D - F ) This is a 7 chord right? I am not sure

( E - G# - B) 3 chord?

(Ab - C - Eb) 6 chord?

Thanks


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## ricardo_jvc6

thats how the intervals need to proceed they need to give straighly 9... or you're doing it wrong. Well this part of music thoery is really my actually forte but i caught it for the 1st time and its hard to understand. Pherhaps explained it wrong or pherhaps you're doing it wrong.


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## ricardo_jvc6

Alright sorry for double post. I found out the problem. if you want the major chords or minor or Am or dim. Its really simple i'll give you an example (C bE bG) the first major chord from C major with 2 acidents. So its not Major and it passes to be Dim. So to make this process you need to count the tones of the intervals, let me explain. 2nd Minor is 0.5, 2nd Major is 1 then 1.5, 2, 2,5,3.. all the way long as you count the chords... the octave which is ((I - VIII) together) needs to give 6 tones. And the major chords need to be, i'll give you an other example ( A C E) which is A minor to make A major you need to change the intervals and they'll make a perfect major chord or minor or Dim or Am. Just goofing around with random notes when the harmony apears


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## Saturnus

It's really easy for you to progress with those connections you use. Just use the 6 ministep connection to produce a chord, then you treat the cord like a subdominant or a dominant of another key, voila, you're in a new key. You just have to be careful to place the cords correctly into the 4-beat cycle (for modulation always put the dominant of the new key on the 4th beat). Maybe you have difficulty with establishing the new tonality, the 5 and 7 minitone step connections are really good for that. 
It's also good to keep in mind that you can create great variety with few cord connections, because the basic harmonic unit is the 4-beat cycle, you can create different units with placing the connection differently within the cycle. 

You should read about Bartók's axis system of harmony. There's a book by Erno Lendvai which explains this very well "Béla Bartók: An Analysis of his music". 

The axis system's main idea is to expand functional harmony by allowing substitudes of each function. The substitute can be any chord a minor 3rd/augmented 4th apart from the original chord (so a B, Db and E chords are also Dominants in the C major tonality - D, Ab and H chords subdominants and Eb - F# and A chords tonics)**. So each function becomes an "Axis"* of chords and you're not really working in different keys but in one 12 tone key, so this system is more like Super-tonal, than atonal, and is really the basis of all 20th century melodic but progressive music. 

The strength of this system is that it's really open and when you work with it by ear the song usually settles on one "home" tonic, but thinking in terms of those functions really helps shaping and constructing progression in the song. 


*It's called an Axis, because the cords of the axis are as far apart as possible on the circle of fifths

** This division into dominant, subdominant and tonic cords simply states that all dominant-subdominant chord connection have similar "feel", for an example; Tonic-Tonic relations are always really static, you can just check the similarity between C-a and C-F#, there is no real going forward in those connection. Messiaen utilizes this in the "Louange á l'Éternité de Jésus"movement in the Quatuor pour la fin du temps, where he uses only chords from one axis for most/all of the time to create this fealing of static cyclicity.


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## sammyooba

I think im onto something with the hints you guys gave me. I'm getting the idea that 5 chord and 6 chord is actually the 1 chord of another key, and that nonboring sound I'm talking about is going from inside key to outside the key and returning.

Chord 1,2,3,4 are the chords of the key. Then 5,6, etc is actually the 1,2,3,4 of the next key. 5 is the 1 of F major, 6 is the 2 of F major.

Example-

1->3->6->4->5->1
After the 3 chord, it travels to the 2 Chord in G major, returning to the original key by going to 4 chord in C major, then going back to the 1 chord in G major, and then returning to the 1 chord in C major.


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## Saturnus

chord 5 ministeps away is definately not from another key, but it's a subdominant, which is used much less than a dominant (7 step chord). But if you use the 5 step chord a lot, listeners might get the feel that the tonic is the dominant and the subdominant the tonic in a key 1 flat or natural away. You must also keep in mind the 4 beat cycle, since chords have different effects in different locations. 
The 6 ministep chord is from a totally different key, actually as different key as possible. C major is 6# or 6b away from the F#/Gb major chord for an example.


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## Comus

This is quite a confusing dialect of musical language. It wouldn't take long to study the first chapter or two from a harmony textbook to get the gist of building practically any diatonic chord. Then if you forgo the study of progressions, you can just do a lot of experimenting



sammyooba said:


> I know many might think that music is about expression and not just about beauty, but for my purposes, I am aiming for purefully beautiful songs as my script is about a perfectly beautiful world with no flaws


From what I gather, you're looking to achieve a kind of superficial beauty. Play around with 7th, 9th, 11th and suspended chords for variety in basic progressions. Look at a Debussy score and the things he did (not to say Debussy's music is superficial, though I'm sure many people do). This is a shallow way of looking at it, but if you're not looking to create some expressionist, structural masterpiece, it may help a bit.


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## GraemeG

I thought the term 'semi-tone' was universal for a 'half-step' between two full tones - C and D for instance, but then I see 'mini-step'...?
As for


> So thus, I don't know common music theory terms or rules, but I think I'm an okay composer.


 I'm baffled. Learn some theory. Yeesh.
Can you picture someone saying "I don't know any grammar and I can't spell, but I think I'm a pretty good writer"...
[shakes head]
GG


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