# Advice on harmonic variation



## Celloissimo

While composing, I've been wanting to enrich my music with harmonic variation and chordal extensions. Thus far when I'm voicing chords it is usually just based off the root, third, and fifth, and sevenths in dominant chords. But I want to use 13th, 11th, Neopolitan Sixths, etc. in my music but I want to be able to use them appropriately and know when it would be effective to apply them. Thanks.


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## Kazaman

I can't write anything detailed right now, but you should do two things: 

- study music by other composers, taking special care on the passages where they use those techniques; and
- read music theory textbooks, where their usage is usually introduced and explained.


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## Billy

My advice to you is to throw theory out the window. I myself have found it useless for a number of reasons when making music that I are proud of. Sure they teach it in the schools, that is fine, but instead as an alternative to theory I would suggest that you play music live without reading it, instead listening to patterns and phrases you love which just come naturally to you. I have over thirty years of doing this have gathered into my memory when I play thousands of variations that have moved me over time that I improvise upon. I believe that the only method is the self, who is also ultimately the only true teacher you will ever need. I like many American jazz artists have an ear for music without being able to need to read it. There is not a day that goes by that I do not play and record music, and I never have regretted once that I learn melodies and invent them on my own this way.


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## Celloissimo

Whatever floats your boat man, but I'd rather learn the rules before I can break them. Theory has helped me make compositions *I* find satisfactory, so logically I would like to educate myself more.


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## Igneous01

Besides what was already suggested, have you tried writing a strict exercise? For example, write a fugal exposition for 3 or 4 voices with a tone row as a subject - this will open up a lot of possibilities for harmonic variation because you are dealing with all 12 tones. 

Have you used secondary dominants before? They are a good way of adding variety. Also try writing out some 4 part in a mode like dorian or phrygian.


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## Majed Al Shamsi

These topics (13th, 11th, Neopolitan Sixths, etc.) are covered in a book called Harmony, by Walter Piston. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
A PDF of it should be available somewhere online.

Topics you might also want to look into include chord progressions and chord functions, obviously.

As a side comment on some of the replies I read here about music theory being a list of rules that are meant to be broken - Walter Piston in his book puts it in a better, less contradictory way. He says that music theory isn't a list of rules at all; rather, it is just an explanation of how popular composers wrote their music. Music theory isn't meant to tell you how to write, but how music 'was' written. You can (and should) cherry-pick what you like from it, when you need it.

Good luck with your compositions!


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## Celloissimo

Thank you for the suggestion Majed! I actually own Counterpoint by Walter Piston where he adopts the same attitude, showing how music _has_ been written instead of presenting a list of rules. I'm quite fond of that approach.


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## The Pianist

There you run into difficulties because remember, the more complicated the harmonic progression, the less likely it will be that the listener will even remember. If you ever studied Mozart's progressions, some were painfully simple, hardly ever straying from the tonic, dominant, and subdominant. I am certainly not suggesting that anyone should do the same, I am as much as a fan of the diminished dominant with an added dominant 7th as the next Tchaikovsky enthusiast. Yet these simple progressions are the easiest to remember because these are the most natural sounding. Most 9th chords and even some 7th chords surprise the listener, and although they paint the score with new ideas and surprises, too many "unnatural" progressions destroy the harmony and therefore the piece. As someone else has suggested, in dealing with these unorthodox chords, the best solution would to simply play around with them, apply the basic principles of voice leading, and play what sounds right.


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