Silly chord progression question
Ok I have looked and looked, I cannot find a simple chord progression chart, or generator to download for free.
I do have a Diatonic Chord Progression Chart, is this what I want?
It has been years since I tried to write anything from scratch (like since '83) when I was a music major in tech school.
I realize this is basic stuff I should know, but I can't remember a thing.
Is anyone interested in pointing me to where I can find what I need to write things from scratch.
I have watched a few video tuts, but those guys make it seem look so simple.
Thanks for reading:)
Comments
The most basic rules for adding chords is to use the 3 chord trick.
That is the chords built of the triads on the 1st, 4th and 5th degrees in the scale
ie The Tonic Subdominant and Dominant.
If you look at the notes in these three triads you well see that they contain all 8 notes of the scale.
This means you can literally work out which chord to use for which melody note by seeing if the melody note is in the chord.
It will also help you to decide whether you want to have one chord per bar (folk or jazz song) or one chord per note (hymn tune).
Once you can do that you can move to using slightly more exotic chords.
HTH
Michael
In reply to I should start with the 3 chord trick by ChurchOrganist
If I understand this correctly, I use a Cmaj chord the notes in that bar should be either C, E or G, if it is a Cmaj7 I can use B as well. If I use the IV chord which is F B D, and that is all I should use at this stage, in that bar. Moving back to the Cmaj is a possibility, as is repeating the IV, or usund the V. I read on a webpage somewhere the three chords, are quite common and this individual considers them the "workhorse" chords. This particular guy also says that, he would like to see more "melody first" approaches, most commonly now is "chord first", then he regresses while, that a rhythm first approach may in fact be better, followed by melody, then finally the chords to match the melody. It makes sense refer here http://garyewer.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/which-chords-with-which-notes-…
In reply to If I understand this by earthshaker
Well I cut my teeth harmonising chorales, being given the melody and having to add alto tenor and bass.
So presumably I fall into the melody first category which is the way I've always worked.
A book that may help you is the one I used in college: First Year Harmony by William Lovelock which takes you through the basic stuff. You can then follow it up with his Second Year Harmony which covers chromatic harmony, chords of the augmented 6th etc.
But yes the 3 chord trick is the foundation of Western harmony.
What you have outlined is basically correct, but you should ignore secondary 7th chords like Cma7 for the time being which are used more for effect. Notes which don't belong to the chord are known as passing notes which can be accented - in effect an appoggiatura, and unaccented. So an accented passing note would form a suspension which resolves on the next melody note, and an unaccented passing note occurs after the chord has been struck. So to use your example of the C chord, having a B in the bar of mainly C E and Gs would be ignored and counted as a passing note.
HTH
Michael
In reply to If I understand this by earthshaker
Small correct - the IV chord in C is FAC, not FBD. The V chord is GBD. Chords are built in thirds up from the root.
But also to expand on something Michael points out, you should not feel the slightest bit compelled to limit your melody to just the chord tones. Virtually no real world melodies do that; most include a variety of non-chord tones as well. Just look look at any real songs for which you have the music and see for yourself. There,s nothing particularly wrong with "chords first" thinking - it's how the vast majority of jazz is improvised - but it is true that if you were to limit your mleodies to chord tones only, you would get pretty lousy melodies.
In reply to If I understand this by earthshaker
I've written a Bach style melody for flute and used chords I IV and V to harmonise it, using root position notes in the bassline.
Note that until you get to the cadence the harmonic rhythm is 1 chord per bar where it has 2 chords in the penultimate bar which helps to increase the tension before the Perfect Cadence resolves to chord I.
Note also that every bar contains except the last contains notes which do not belong to the chord assigned to it. These are all unaccented passing notes except for bar 5 where the first note C is an accented passing note which resolves onto the following D#
HTH
Michael