can i find i guide on how to put together interesting chord progression?

[spacegoon]

can i find i guide on how to put together interesting chord progression?

 

I know how to stack thirds and write chord progressions using major and minor scales. but i want to write interesting stuff with wierd chords. and sites/books that will help?

thanks...

[Hugo H]

I'm presuming you are a guitar player, so not being one I asked a friend for a reference. He said you might like to look at:

Advanced Modern Rock Guitar Improvisation by Jon Finn, ISBN

 

Also, if you really are into looking at "interesting stuff with weird chords", search Amazon for books on Jazz Guitar. That might help.

[Eric VB]

Hey spacegoon, welcome to Songwriting and Composition!

 

I don't know of any guides that specifically address your question. Maybe someone else here does? [edit: like Hugo, who has beaten me to the punch! ]

 

I think the interesting stuff with weird chords comes from two places: theory and experimentation.

 

Theory can be tailored a bit to fit the genre. For example, learning classical music theory and jazz theory are a little different, even though they are both music theory. So, I'd suggest you look for something in your genre. A good book is fine if you're extremely self-motivated. Private lessons or a class would be better. (I know some colleges limit their music theory classes to just music majors, so this may be a little more difficult, but well worth the effort.)

 

Experimentation is probably where I came up with a lot of wierd stuff. Someone may listen to it and be able to analyze it and tell me exactly what chords I played, but most likely I would not have been able to create it from such an analytical approach.

 

For example, one song I wrote uses an open E major guitar chord, except I've replaced the 3rd (G#) with an A# (a flatted 5th). I didn't start out by saying I wanted a flatted 5th chord there. I probably started with a few notes -- maybe just the dissonance of the A# against a B -- and built the chord up from that. But when there were just two notes, there were more choices for what chord they would fit. In this case, a Bmaj7 would have worked, too, except the Bmaj7 didn't fit the rest of what was going on.

 

For a long time I was writing starting with the chord progression, experimenting and trying to come up with someting interesting. This worked fine, but I often found myself stuck in one key once I figured out what the key center was. For example, in G major I would avoid adding an Fmaj chord, or every C chord would have to be Cmaj or Cmaj7, never Cmin (Eb) or C4 (F) because they contained notes that were out of key.

 

Lately, I've tried starting with a melody and then adding chords later. My songs have a lot more modulations now. It's really helped me look at things differently, and let me know when and where to add a chord that's totally out of key without it sounding wrong or random. Now if the melody leads me to Fmaj when I'm in G major, everything is fine.

 

What kind of music are you writing? Do you write from instruments or from paper? Do you often start writing a song from the chords, or a riff, or from a lyric/melody, or even a bass line or drum groove?

[D_dup3]

Expeimentation is the key.

Anything that's built from a "formulaic" outline will only wind up sounding formulaic. You can't be original by following that path.

 

If you really need something to get you started, study the work of musicians that have worked in the paricular styles you like, whether it's Zappa, Beefheart, Thelonious Monk or even just some of the more quirky Beatles's tunes (Lennon, especially, had a gift for this stuff).

Another thing to try is to check out some music from a totally different culture. You can hear bits that appeal to you & explore what elements make the sounds you find intriquing.

 

One of the interesting things about rock music, to me, is how it regularly "squares off" the more supple modulations of jazz & older pop styles.

 

Who do youy like that does something along the lines of what you're interested in?

Maybe I can give you some tips on similar areas to explore.

[D_dup3]

Myabe something like these might help:

 

The Songwriting Sourcebook

How to Turn Chords into Great Songs

Rikky Rooksby

Publication Date: October, 2003

 

Learn songwriting secrets by seeing and hearing step-by-step examples of song craft--from the author of the bestselling How to Write Songs on Guitar.

 

A Player's Guide to Chords & Harmony

Music Theory for Real-World Musicians

Jim Aikin

Publication Date: July, 2004

Advance your musical skills with practical theory for self-taught musicians ready to make a leap forward in playing and creating music.

 

How To Write Songs on Guitar

A Guitar-Playing and Songwriting Course

Rikky Rooksby

Publication Date: August, 2000

Rikky Rooksby helps you transform your guitar-playing skills into creative songwriting techniques. Using well-known songs as examples, plus lots of graphics, he explains and demonstrates how lyrics, melody, harmony, and rhythm work in a song.

 

All are currently available from Backbeat Books & can be further investigated via the main page here at MPlayer.

They're not really guides to building unusual progressions but by tweaking their ideas you may get what you want.

[spacegoon]

thanks

[D_dup3]

uh, so who do you already like ?

[spacegoon]

i'm interested in coming up with odd chord variations.

i was wondering if you could recomend any jazz pieces that have strange chords.

[Eric VB]

Hmm ... jazz is a pretty broad topic. From the beginnings with Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver and his protege Louis Armstrong, through Duke Ellington and Count Basie, through Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, and into today's vast cornucopia of styles and fusions with various other genres of music, jazz can mean so many things.

 

As to the exotic chords themselves, here is an example of what can be found on the web.

 

As far as recorded material to listen to for unusual chord progressions, that's a little harder to answer. The easiest answer is to listen to composers/songwriters whose main instrument is different from yours. That is, if you're a guitar player, listen to music composed on piano. The interface of each instrument makes some musical ideas easier to express than others, influencing the characteristic chord progressions one might come up with on the instrument. (Pianists just love a circle of ascending 4ths , for example.)

 

If you want to stick with jazz guitarists, there are several to choose from. You may get more suggestions on this front by posting to the Guitar Player forum on this site.

 

I'm no authority in this area, but I'm a fan of the '70s fusion group Return to Forever, in which Al Di Meola plays guitar. I can't say I'm familiar with his work, but Pat Metheny sure has a nice bio, including recording with jazz legend Ornette Coleman. (If you want to hear something different, you should listen to Coleman.)

 

If there are any jazz radio stations in your area, give them a listen to see who interests you. I know it's getting harder to find anything but "smooth jazz" on the radio these days, but maybe your NPR or college stations will have certain times -- like Sunday evenings -- when they play other kinds of jazz.

 

Another thing is to go to a music retailer and make use of their previewing systems. Around here, Borders has headphones and various tracks available, so you can listen to get an idea of what's on a CD before you buy it.

 

Actually immersing yourself in jazz is even better. If you've got the chops, see if you can join a local jazz band. Playing in my high school jazz band was very helpful. Community colleges might have jazz bands, too. (Universities' jazz bands may only be offered to music majors, so check, but are another great opportunity.) Private lessons can help improve your chops, and may be a source of leads for bands to join.

 

Likewise, attending jazz concerts is always good. Again, local high schools and colleges are good sources for these. (When I lived in your area, I played in the Lassiter High School

jazz band, although they're probably better known for their symphonic and marching bands.)

 

I like to use the analogy that music is a language. In that language we can speak (e.g. play a note), listen, read, and write. In this context, I feel music theory is akin to the rules of grammar.

 

"This is a sentence." It's rather bland, but has everything we expect to read: subject, verb, object. Kind of like a major triad, with expected root, major 3rd, and 5th. Or maybe this is a "I vi IV V" progression.

 

How can you use words to describe your ideas in an interesting fashion? You could use "exotic" words in combinations that are "unusual". In prose, you can vary sentence structure to keep a listener's interest; a string of simple sentences can seem boring.

 

But you can't just put any words together and call it a sentence, can you? "Cold fidget streaming cow blue." Sounds like nonsense, right? Maybe I meant to say, "The nervous cow fidgets in the cold, blue stream." Losing some meaning, a more simple approach is, "The cow stands in water."

 

You can use some "poetic license" to avoid some of the rules of grammer, but stray too far and your message may be lost.

 

So, in this analogy, you're looking to build your vocabulary (of chords) and you want to be able to use them in interesting sentences (progressions). Learn the chords, learn the theory, listen to songs. You can learn a lot by analyzing others' songs and copying them. In the end, though, it takes more than just lifting chord progressions from other composers to use in your own work. You've got to write your own sentences (progressions) if you want to write an original novel (composition).

 

Sorry if I went a little overboard there; I was inspired.

[Russian_Vulture]

And What about Vai.com?

I think, his "Martian Loves Secrets" inspires

a lot, and not only in chord progressions.

Experimentation is the key, to my mind.

[D_dup3]

As Ric's said, jazz is a big range of music.

Maybe you could name a couple performers you like ? I kinds get the impression, though, that you're coming at this from a starting position & are looking for odd/wierd chords more than a type of music or maybe even more than a context for using them.

Apologies if I'm wrong & in any case there's nothing particularly wrong with that....except that "weird chords" alone aren't gonna put you or your music in any unique position.

"There's nothing new under the sun", as someone once said.

 

What I suggest is looking at something more specific---a song, a progression---& then thinking about what you want to do to it to take it out of the cliched or "normal" area.

 

If you just want some "weird jazz chords" you could pick almost anybody---one oversimplification is that jazz is the business of making music "weird"--- but the most oddball harmonically would be Thelonious Monk, whose work is full of harmonies that even jazz cats think are strange.

I also like a guy from the 1960s/70s known as Captain Beefheart (& His Magic Band). He wasn't strictly jazzy---in fact his stuff sounds like rock music...but very quirky rock music. He & his guitarists were masters at making music that drew heavily on blue roots but injected some very strange chords into them. He was also very imitated by a lotta punk-rock types, although for the most part they had no idea what he was doing & just copied his "atonality" without context. Primus is a band much influenced by him, though they had a better grasp on music than most.

I think their background music to South Park can give you some ideas, maybe. Learn to play that stuff--but be aware too that someof that's achieved y weird (even "off") tunings.

 

Again, just getting a list of weird chords & trying to string them together's not gonna really establish anything by itself.

I go back to the experimentation idea: take a perticular song that you want to develop this way, find some place in it where you think it should be different & vary the chord ther. You migh just change a single note or you might substitute a completely unexpected chord. Doing that will give you a better idea of what to do & how these things interact than trying to mush someunrelated things together which can certainly give some weird outcomes but then so would just strumming some random chords.

See what I mean?

& alway play & listen to things rather than just presume that because you've read about them & mentally understand them that you actually do understand them musically. Music's in the ear & just understanding an intellectual concept is not at all the same as knowing how it works.

 

I'm sorry not to be more precice but I really think you've got to look beyond what's odd to a more focused idea of what you want to do.

[D_dup3]

Here's an offer...

Post a chord progression that you like but would like to make a bit more kinky & I'll offer some ideas about what I might do.

Include an idea of the style of music, as well as what you'd like to get (other than just "weird").

Sound fair?

[GreggB]

you can always call Billy Joel or Elton John

[Jazzwee]

You should start off studying a chord progression that you find in "Giant Steps", if you're interested in jazz concepts.

 

http://www.heplaysjazz.btinternet.co.uk/giants.html

 

The above links shows a representation of the chord sequence. It shows two issues in jazz.

(1) ii-V-I progression

(2) Modulation in 3rds

 

This is basic jazz concept. They you can invent other variations on the same theme.

 

I advise a little study of music theory so understand the reasoning for some of the progressions which are usually expressed in scale degrees (forgive me if you already know all these).

 

The majority of tunes, expressed in scale degrees are in

1-4-5 (rock, blues)

2-5-1 (jazz)

6-2-5-1 (jazz)

3-6-2-5-1 (jazz)

 

progressions, with key modulations interspersed in between. You can use this as a basis for thinking out of the box.

[stevie-j]

this might help

http://chordmaps.com/index.htm

[Fulc]

Surprised that no one's mentioned Walter Piston yet. OK, he's not a guitarist, but his book will give you an overall framework that you can apply to any instrument you can play.

[Alcuin804]

Spacegoon, the program Band-in-a-Box can come up with all kinds of weird chord progressions. For starters, there's a menu item on it, "Unusual Chords," that can be a real ear opener.

 

Try to get Joni Mitchell "artist-transcription" books (NOT "easy-play" songbooks if you can help it).

 

"The Art of Steely Dan" would help you tremendously. It's sort of a theory book, actually. And just LISTEN to Steely Dan, if you're into weird chords and progressions.

 

Also, Mike Oldfield, Al DiMeola, Brecker Brothers, countless others.

 

Advanced (VERY advanced) books:

 

MODAL JAZZ COMPOSITION AND HARMONY, Ron Miller

 

BEYOND FUNCTIONAL HARMONY, Wayne Naus

 

Good exploring!

[rgordon83]

what do you mean by "strange" chords? Strange can mean many different things to many different people. I guess you should start by learning chord extensions and inversions. But i guess the best way to get some "outside" sounds is to also expiriment with chord subsitutions and key changes (also maybe some chromatic passing chords) in your progressions.

[Eric VB]

Glad to see this old thread brought back to life with some very solid responses. Since there is some interest in this topic, let's keep it going!

 

When writing a song as a chord progression first, what sort of things do you do to keep things interesting? For example, when writing in a rock/blues vein are you constantly vigilant about avoiding 1-(6)-4-5 progressions? Or (3)-(6)-2-5-1 in jazz? Or do you let the chord progression evolve as it wants to knowing that the melody/lyrics will ultimately define the song?

 

I'm pretty sure all of the big three forums here have addressed the issue of using different instruments while writing to spark new ideas. For example, a guitar player can switch to keys to discover different voicings and changes. I know I've gone to acoustic open mikes and watched guitarist after guitarist play original songs using the same chord voicings (because the open chords better suit the instrument), even to the point of using the same 5 or 6 chords all night. It starts to become cliche when the only sus4 occurs as a Dsus4 that alternates in some fashion with Dmaj. Do you consciously avoid incorporating certain changes while writing?

 

Is the answer then to seek out "strange" chords? Or is it more a matter of "expanding your palette" to allow more diversity in your writing? If that is the case, do you favor hitting the theory books or just experimenting with your ear?

 

When working from a melody first, what sort of strategy do you employ to avoid the same old chords and progressions? That is, if a phrase from the melody suggest an "obvious" chord, do you just go with that or do you consider alterations or substitutions?

 

What role does rhythm play while developing a song? "All Day And All Of The Night" and "Destroyer" by The Kinks not only have the same chords for the verses, but the same rhythm. When you're writing a song and start to drift dangerously close toward duplicating a well-known song, do you change the harmony (chords), the rhythm, or something else? Or do you just figure most people won't notice because the melody/lyrics is/are so different?

 

Getting back to chords and progressions, how important is the function of the chords?

[Alcuin804]

Getting back to chords and progressions, how important is the function of the chords?

 

Quite right, Ric. The most "normal" chords can sound strange depending on their function within a progression. And "weird" chords can sound "normal" depending on functional context.

[Eric Iverson]

Odd chord variations in jazz? Well, there's always Theolonius Monk and Duke Ellington... who make them sound musical as well!

(So that it's not just for musicians who care about chord progressions - believe it or not, the average person totally could care less. It fits in the context of great tunes anybody could enjoy.)

 

In rock.. well, the Beatles, while hardly avant-garde.. went off on strange harmonic and rhythmic tangents sometimes, and it all it did was add to the tunes. Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell... is my age showing??

 

I have an old Guitar Player column about a beautiful Chopin chord progression charted out for guitar... cool stuff, certainly way beyond just playing standard guitar chord forms. Anybody interested, I can try and track it down for you... no promises - so many old GPs, so little time!

[dp2]

Also check out the following: Eric Dolphy, Charlie Mingus, Freddie Hubbard, Don Cherry, Stanley Clark, George Duke, Yusef Latif (especially Psychosemotis), Lonie Liston Smith, Miles Davis (especially the Jean Piere album--and don't forget about B. Brew), Wes Montgomery, Bud Powell, McCoy Tyner, and George Avanis for starters.

[mcstrum]

I was in your exact situation and I went through quite a few books and online resources and finally purchased the entire Guitar Grimoure series of books. By Carl Fischer

 

"Progressions and Improvisation" and "Chords and Voicings" would be the 2 that would help you the most. I use all the books in the set on a daily basis, study theory and scales and all that fun stuff. But the 2 books I mentioned above should get you on a good track to start.

 

McStrum

http://www.dejunair.com

[Lou Gambino]

Try the trusty old 6m-4-1-5 progresion. It's worked for a zillion hit songs. Then just through in a variation of the of the 2m-5-7 for the bridge and chorus and there you go!

[Lou Gambino]

I can't belive I mis-spelled throw!

[Griffinator]

Blah. A lot of discussion about well-beaten chord progressions doesn't answer the question of how to create an interesting one.

 

I'm of the mind that the best chord progressions don't stay in a single key. Example: Connie Francis - "Where The Boys Are" (Neil Sedaka) - brilliant modulation from Bb into D and then back out to Bb.

[DonaldM]

i'm interested in coming up with odd chord variations.

i was wondering if you could recomend any jazz pieces that have strange chords.

 

Your local music book dealer should have Basic Chord Progressions by Dick Weissman (An Alfred Handy Guide: Alfred Publishing Co). Its one of those reference guides thats 8 1/2" by 3" (tall and skinny!). Its chock full of all sorts of interesting progressions with examples from songs that used them. From there you can improvise.

 

Have fun!!!