Need some help on chord progression

[jellygod]

So, i'm writing this piece today in C major, and i need some help with the chord progression, of course im starting out with a I, but can anyone give me some ideas after that. i'm a beginner at compositions, and i'd appreciate all the help. I remember my teacher told me a basic combination of chord progression to begin a composition but i forgot it. thanks

[Cyanite]

You can follow a circle of fifths/fourths progression, that's somewhat standard.

[jellygod]

whats circle progression? or would it take too long to explain.

[zajac]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths

[lord_carbo]

Originally Posted by jellygod

So, i'm writing this piece today in C major, and i need some help with the chord progression, of course im starting out with a I, but can anyone give me some ideas after that. i'm a beginner at compositions, and i'd appreciate all the help. I remember my teacher told me a basic combination of chord progression to begin a composition but i forgot it. thanks

Don't start with a chord progression unless you already have a really good idea for a chord progression.

Start with a melody and possibly a motif, too. That's my suggestion. Then fit it to a chord progression. Then work with what you have. You can reuse the chord progression in a counter-melody, or you can just develop upon the melodic and thematic ideas you've created.

Consider the first movement of Beethoven's fifth symphony:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhcR1ZS2hVo

Most of it is based on this simple motif:



It's a simple motif, but it's the basis of the whole damn first movement. Beethoven just keeps developing it and developing it. And then he fits the motif to different chords. And it's brilliant.

[gafandriel]

Like a lot of people have suggested. the most basic and easiest to work with would be the circle of fifths.

[Cyanite]

Originally Posted by lord_carbo

Start with a melody and possibly a motif, too. That's my suggestion. Then fit it to a chord progression. Then work with what you have.

Actually yeah, do this. It's what I always do.

[Erothyme]

If you approach the music in the standard way, it will likely end up sounding standard.

Create something which sounds interesting and/or compelling to you. This way, you may actually manage to create something reflective of your own self and style rather than reflective of the observations of music theoreticians. You don't need or want someone else to guide you through that.

Learn your own rules before you learn other rules, or you will probably end up sounding dry and unoriginal, iterating played-out compositional techniques, blending into the scenery, so to speak. When you make your own observations first, you have an intensely personal understanding of them. Many of them will likely coincide with observations from music theory. In this case, music theory becomes a reinforcement for your own ideas rather than a basis for them.

If you rely too heavily on music theory before you learn to write music in an abstract and personal way, you're working backwards. It's like falling into the ground instead of lifting into the sky. It's like going to school to learn how to paint or write poetry. It's flat retarded and it will maim your creative spirit.

[lord_carbo]

Originally Posted by Erothyme

Learn your own rules before you learn other rules, or you will probably end up sounding dry and unoriginal, iterating played-out compositional techniques, blending into the scenery, so to speak. When you make your own observations first, you have an intensely personal understanding of them. Many of them will likely coincide with observations from music theory. In this case, music theory becomes a reinforcement for your own ideas rather than a basis for them.

I disagree.

All of the radical composers of the late 19th century onward (Debussy, Ravel, Mahler, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Shostakovich) all had an intimate understanding of traditional harmony before they dove into their own extremely unique styles. (All composers had formal understandings of theory, except Balakirev who is mostly forgotten except for his "Islamey" and the occasional spot on classical radio. And even he was a pianist so he read lots of sheet music and picked up his understanding from that.) Some of those composers, like Debussy and Mahler, stuck mostly to standard practice but exploited a few elements not exploited nearly as much. Others incorporated elements of common practice-- even Schoenberg!-- but didn't stick much to it. It's good to explore music on your own, but that should be done more while a person learns music theory than before it. It's almost a waste of time to try to compose for an extended period without ever having learned theory. It will take you a lifetime to comprehend the vast array of effects available to you.

Remember that music theory is a set of suggestions, not a set of explicit rules. And it's a good list of suggestions because usually, what you the composer want to do is something that has already been done multiple times by other composers. And this is why I suggest developing with music theory: more and more you'll realize effects that you've intended are effects that composers do all the time.

I feel that I have an excellent understanding of most of the techniques used up to the late 19th century, but I don't bind myself to them. They're just there, in case I need them, and I can call upon them whenever. The good yet unlearned composer will probably once in a while call upon some of these techniques, but more out of luck than of understanding.

Here's the introduction from Walter Piston's Harmony (3rd edition):

The first important step in the study of harmony is that of clarifying the purpose of such study. Much confusion exists today as to why we study musical theory and what we should expect to learn from it. In the present writer's teaching experience this confusion of outlook furnishes the commonest and more serious obstacle to progress in all branches of musical theory.

There are those who consider that studies in harmony, counterpoint, and fugue are the exclusive province of the intended composer. But if we reflect that theory must follow practice, rarely preceding it except by change, we must realize that musical theory is not a set of directions for composing music. It Is rather the collected and systematized deductions gathered by observing the practice of composers over a long time, and it attempts to set forth what is or has been their common practice. It tells not how music will be written in the future, but how music has been written in the past.

The results of such a definition of the true nature of musical theory are many and important. First of all, it is clear that this knowledge is indispensable to musicians in all fields of the art, whether they be composers, performers, conductors, critics, teachers, or musicologists. Indeed, a secure grounding in theory is even more a necessity to the musical scholar than to the composer, since it forms the basis for any intelligent appraisal of individual styles of the past or present.

On the other hand, the person gifted for creative musical composition is taking a serious risk in assuming that his genius is great enough to get along without a deep knowledge of the common practice of composers. Mastery of the technical or theoretical aspects of music should be carried out by him as a life's work, running parallel to his creative activity but separate from it. In the one he is following common practice, while in the other he is responsible solely to the dictates of his own personal tastes and urge for expression.

In the specific field of harmony we must first seek the answer to two questions--what are the harmonic materials commonly used by composers, and how have these materials been used? We cannot afford in the first stages of our study to become interested in the individual composer at the expense of concentration on establishing the norm of common practice. With such a norm firmly in mind, the way will be clear to the investigation of the individual harmonic practices of composers of all periods, and especially to the scientific examination of the divergent practices noticeable in the twentieth century.

Historically, the period in which this common practice may be detected includes roughly the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. During that time there is surprisingly little change in the harmonic materials used and in the manner of their use. The experimental period of the early twentieth century will appear far less revolutionary when the lines of development from the practice of older composers become clearer by familiarity with the music. As yet, however, one cannot define a twentieth-century common practice.

Hence the aim of this book is to present as concisely as possible the harmonic common practice of composers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Rules are announced as observations reported, without attempt at their justification on aesthetic grounds or as laws of nature. The written exercises of composers and not as efforts in creative composition. The author believes that through these principles a prompt and logical grasp of the subject will be achieved.

I think why you're so harsh to music theory is that you think it doesn't teach you to be creative. That is 100% correct. But music theory certainly facilitates creativity by giving the composer a wide array of tools to work with.

[Sgtzombie.]

http://www.musictheory.net/lessons/html/id56_en.html

Dun dun!

[sleeplessdragn]

Be one with the Tao, for there is no Tao.