Hello, I'm trying to learn music theory. I was hoping some of you could help me.
I wrote a chord progression that goes like this:
C E G B
A C E B
D A E F
F C F A
The first two chords are Cmaj7 and Amin9 I know but what would I call the second two chords?
Also, given that I'm only using "white notes" that means that the song must be in the key of C or Amin right? Assuming it's in C would the chord progression be I vi ii IV
I would appreciate any input on this.
>what would I call the second two chords?
inverted something-something
>would the chord progression be I vi ii IV
ask /classical/ shitdip
Good idea, I'll try there.
3rd is Dadd4
4th is just an F
Yes
Yes
Dadd2*
no bot
Isn't it a Dmin+2?
First of all, chords are important, but I hope you can quickly get out of the mindset of thinking only about chords and not melodic lines. Chords are a convenient way to generate full sounding accompaniments, as COMPLEMENTS to lines. They're not that interesting on their own.
The third chord is a D minor triad with an added 9th, and the last chord is a straightforward F major triad. If you are only going by that progression, then you are indeed in C major, and your interpretation of your chord progression is correct. But music that only has "white notes" is not necessarily only in C major or A minor; if you haven't learned about modes yet, that's where you'll find that out.
No, because you didn't alterate the 5th (F) and you're adding a 2nd (E).
plus is good advice
Great, thank you all for your responses!
I definitely tend to think more in terms of chords, it's just what I'm drawn to making most of the time. But I completely agree that I should try to get better at writing melodies, it's something that I struggle with. How would you recommend going about improving that ability?
5th (A)* oops again
The first chord is Cmaj7 but the second chord is actually Am9 chord because you're not playing the G. Actually I think even writing Am9 would imply including the G i'm not sure what you would use to notate omission of the G. Regardless Am9 should work since the G is a hollow note for that chord anyway but if you want the exact notation I'm not sure.
The third chord would be a Dm9 (like the second chord you aren't using the 7th ((C)) so once again I'm not sure specifically what you'd call it but Dm9 is basically what it is).
The fourth is just an F major chord. As for the progression you're correct it's esentially I vi ii IV.
I'm confused- the E is the 9th (or 2nd); why would you say add 4?
>I should try to get better at writing melodies, it's something that I struggle with
1) Pick a major or minor key.
2) Play whatever sounds good while sticking to your key.
3) ??????
4) Profit!
Does a 9 chord imply the 7th is present? I've never heard that before.
Just pay more attention to the melodic parts of whatever music it is that you like. Everything has melodies in them, even stuff that you wouldn't think of as being very melodic. Even just a chord progression by itself has melodies embedded inside it, in fact that's all a "progression" really is, a handful of basic homophonic melodies stacked on top of one another. Melodies (or in the case I just described, "voice leading", they're basically the same concept) provide the motivating factor that makes your music go forward, as every piece of music must do. Listen to a piece of music and look for the intrinsic melodic element that makes it "go". Then when you're writing music, try writing just that basic melodic part, with no accompaniment at all; think about the chords afterward.
Thank you, this sounds like solid advice. When I play familiar chord progressions on guitar I try to switch up the highest notes being played, which sounds a bit like what you're describing. I'll try to isolate interesting melodies when I listen to music.
>on guitar
kek that explains it
Can you even play all major and minor scales?
There's no need to be a faggot user. OP's just trying to make music. He doesn't need to tick any of your boxes to do that or ask questions about it.
yeah yeah but knowing the maj/min scales makes it really easy to think of melodies so he (You?) should really do that
As for how to generate melodies on your own, it's honestly something that just happens. When you come up with something that sounds good in your head, stop what you're doing and write it down. If you're really stuck, improvisation helps a lot (as long as you're willing to lower your standards for what passes as a good melody for a bit), that's how a LOT of music gets written by professional musicians. It may be helpful to first come up with an abstract idea (possibly not even musical) for what you want to DO with your next piece of music, and how you want it to feel.
That's how you come up with a "theme", so a short snippet of music which is going to be the "main idea" of your piece. When you have that, you have a few options for how you want to keep going. You can repeat it, with slight variations. You can introduce another theme. Or you can keep improvising. Generating music basically boils down to performing a sequence consisting of these three actions.
One last thing I want to tell you, don't throw ANYTHING away. Write everything, record everything, save everything. No matter what you think at the time, it's ALL good music, and it's all YOUR music. Paper, tape, and hard drive space are not scarce resources in modern society. What IS a scarce resource is your INSPIRATION, which you need to hoard and preserve. What sounds like shit one day will sound fucking divine on the next day, or somewhere down the line, when you're working on something completely different and looking for material to use. Keep an open mind, and reuse and re-contextualize whenever possible.
D A E F = D add9
F C A = F major
all you need is the pentatonic, all the scales are just pentatonic scales with color tones
-the 3rd chord is a Dm9 and would sound better with the 7 on top for various reasons, the most pressing of which is that the E and F are pretty dissonant
-the 4th chord does not lead well and sounds jarring. The progression generally goes I-vi-ii-V but if you're insistent on the 4 try Fmaj7/G so it heads back to the I
Actually that was my mistake- I don't think it explicitly implies the seventh.
>Fmaj7/G
this is a good suggestion- you would play it like this (from lowest to highest note of course):
G F A C E
If i'm not mistaken that voicing is known as a mu major chord which always has a really pretty effect.
On guitar I can play them all based on patterns but I should probably get better at reading the fretboard, and I don't know if I can play them all along the neck. On keyboard it's obviously easier since the note layout is clearer (at least for me). It's true what you say though, it would probably be helpful to be able to play the scales all along the neck.
Thanks for the advice, I've started trying to record more of my musical ideas but it's true that a lot of it is lost now which is a shame. I try to improvise but I tend to get stuck in patterns with my playing, it does help to think about it in terms of theme and variation. I like having some sort of framework to work off of.
What I posted was the arpeggiated version I play on keyboard which I chose because it's cleaner for the purposes of educating myself on music theory. It sounds good to me but thanks for the tips, I'll try out your ideas. I generally try to get a bunch of different versions of my chord progressions on a couple of different instruments to see which sounds best.
>a lot of it is lost now
You don't need to get hung up on this either though. It's like anything else, if it's gone then it's gone, move on. Actually, strangely enough, ideas will come back to your head if they're REALLY good. Funny how the subconscious works, stuff you think you forgot long ago will come back to you when you're not even thinking about it. But it doesn't come back faster if you do think about it, it'll just give you a headache.
I meant the 9 on top, sorry. Like:
D F A E
but when you get down to it you don't really even need the 5th at all (the 3rd is enough to get the taste of the chord quality) so why play it right? So how about the 7th instead, like
D F C E...
and then this will suggest nicely the Bdim triad but with the D in the bass, like
D F B D
and this is of course the triad built on the third note of the V chord, which gives nicely the sound of the V without voicing the actual note. My version of your progression would then go like this:
CEGB ACGB DFCE DFBD... ad infinitum.
I hope this helps in some way. Not that you should change to suit my ear, but monkey around with chord progressions more and pay attention to what wants to go where.
That sounds good, thanks for breaking down the steps you took to get where you did. It's good to have different methods for coming up with chord progressions.