chord help using the tonys chords pack

Share your favorite Ableton Live tips, tricks, and techniques.
leighbeynon
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by leighbeynon » Tue Feb 23, 2010 1:59 pm

ok this sounds good to me, i was just not really clear on how the extended chords would fit into the chord set, i mean to say, if i just turn them all into 7ths or 13th or 9ths are the chords all still sitting in the original key ?

from what it looks like the chord sets are based on the roman numeral / diatonic chords
so if i extend any of the based chords in the key to 9th, etc they will all still work together?

im interested in gospel chords / neo soul, and they all work with 7ths 9ths etc
so im just trying to find a good place to start really as the basic maj, min chords really dont have the tone im after

thanks for replying tony !! much appreciated
LPB

leighbeynon
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by leighbeynon » Thu Apr 29, 2010 2:53 pm

im still struggling to create nice progressions with this tool,

maybe i need to look at harmony navigator?

can the scales in the tony chords be used to alter the diatonic chords
LPB

membrane
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by membrane » Fri Apr 30, 2010 8:24 am

Hello leighbeynon!
Check out this free VST-instrument here. It's called Harmony Box. I have a feeling this is something you're after. http://davenoise.com/blog/

leighbeynon
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by leighbeynon » Tue Jun 22, 2010 11:04 am

i downloaded this harmony box and no matter what i move it all sounds the same??

maybe ive set it up wrong, its generates it own sound right? you can use it with any other vst?
LPB

nemoy
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by nemoy » Tue Jun 22, 2010 3:46 pm

hmm... best way of finding chords is searching them...
play a bit around on your piano / midi keyboard, and you'll
find cool chords, all on your own...

And to find out if they fit together, play them and listen.
and you won't need any sort of table / youtube video / Whatever
to tell you...

and yes, it IS that simple.

yur2die4
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by yur2die4 » Tue Jun 22, 2010 5:38 pm

This is not an end-all for chord usage, but it could be a good start:

1. find or make a hook. Something completely smooth, mostly predictable. You could do some classic ones, or do searches on chord progressions, you might come across some decent ones. Now that you've got your hook, you can set it as kind of your 'target'. Your track can possibly start off with it as a teaser, or lead up to it for the 'gitdownwityobadself' part. (I'd recommend finding a basic chord hook at first, and then maybe developing it with thicker 9th/13th etc. chords.) Keep in mind that another thing about chords is that you don't always just want to bang out ALL the notes all at once, it sounds gets cluttered quite easily. You want to figure out what notes within these chords interact best and really focus on how those sound. (of course banging em out can be fun too still)

2. The 'bass note'. Within each chord are a few choices of notes you can choose from as the supporting tone. A C7 chord doesn't necessarily have to have the C note as its bottom end. The bass notes from chord to chord can flow quite smoothly! You can work your way up or down the scale and really tell a story using this technique. Once you have the ideal chords in their ideal places, the next step would probably be to play with inversions until you have some smooth interplay for people to admire while bobbing their heads. When dealing with larger chords, you get quite the plateful of options, but once again if you can pull notes out of those chords, keeping the bare essentials, it gives your track more focus, and more room for extra instruments :).


to be honest, i'm not sure you'd find any of this helpful. hahaha

gibson_ewok
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by gibson_ewok » Tue Jun 22, 2010 6:11 pm

if your working within say Eminor are there other relative chords in different keys that would work with E minor or another other key
The relative major to Eminor is C Major. So any chord in the C Major scale will work.

C D E F G A B C
MAJ MIN MIN MAJ MAJ MIN DIM MAJ

Then from here you could go to A minor. So any chord in A minor will work.

A MAJOR
A B C D E F G A
MIN DIM MAJ MIN MIN MAJ MAJ MIN

And so on and so forth. Keep going relative minor, relative major. Check out my music theory pack on www.mrbillstunes.com

Cheers,
Bill.
www.mrbillstunes.com
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yur2die4
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by yur2die4 » Tue Jun 22, 2010 6:25 pm

Isn't G the relative major to E minor?

pepezabala
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by pepezabala » Wed Jun 23, 2010 11:49 am

dunno what's neosoul, but I imagine you can find a lot of nice "building blocks" here:

http://www.songtrellis.com/


this site has the chord changes of most jazz standards.

leighbeynon
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by leighbeynon » Mon Jun 28, 2010 11:27 am

some very interesting ideas here,

i love the sentence at the end of a load of tips,

" i dont know if any of this will be useful"

ha ha ha great end to a post,

i think you can do alot using you ears, i get caught up on theory what chords are ment to work with each other etc,

i do like the idea of starting with basic traids and then seeing if you can add notes to extend these basic chords, ive memorised all maj and min triads so once i get to grip with using different voicings i can try to build some ideas, very slowly but at least i can try
LPB

gibson_ewok
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by gibson_ewok » Sun Jul 04, 2010 7:45 am

Isn't G the relative major to E minor?
Nah the G is the 3rd.

Cheers,
Bill
www.mrbillstunes.com
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MPGK
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by MPGK » Sun Jul 04, 2010 8:56 am

I repeat myself, but go and get a good teacher or at least get a book written by one.
I don't even know where to begin to correct the mistakes and inaccuracies posted here.
But for a start: G major is the relative major to E minor.
Bill: That you actually take money for teaching people music and obviously don't even know your circle of fifths is not even insolent, it's a crime. I am SHOCKED.

There is no other way but really study music (as a science if you want to call it that) if you "just decided" to make jazzy tunes and have no educational background in that direction whatsoever. And it's a far too complicated subject to put it on less than 200 pages. Either study and practice or be lazy and copy others.

gibson_ewok
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by gibson_ewok » Sun Jul 04, 2010 9:13 am

Bill: That you actually take money for teaching people music and obviously don't even know your circle of fifths is not even insolent, it's a crime. I am SHOCKED.
Thats complete and utter bullshit! I don't take money for teaching people music. I don't even teach people music. I teach people about sound theory and production and I do it for free! The only things I take money for are donations on music I have written and albums which is completely fair.
You just have fun slandering people in public don't you? :P

Cheers,
Bill
www.mrbillstunes.com
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crumhorn
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by crumhorn » Sun Jul 04, 2010 9:22 am

Chords are just the building blocks of harmony, like notes are the building blocks of melody. To use them effectively out need to learn about cadences and chord scales.

a cadence is basically just one chord followed by another. Eg going from chord V to chord I (eg G or G7 going to C) sounds like a traditional ending, going from chord IV to I gives the sound of an amen ending. Going from V to VI gives a feeling of suspension etc. Any of these chords can be made more jazzy or soulish by adding 7thh, 9ths, 11ths etc

A chord scale is just the natural order of chords in any key, just like a scale is a natural sequence of notes. So a C major scale is CDEFGABC and a C major chord scale goes C F Bdim Em Am Dm G(7) C. Just as with a scale it sounds different going up than going down.

a random progression of chords is unlikely to sound musically satisfying even if it is all correctly in key - just as random notes from the key of c major won't necessarily make a good melody.
"The banjo is the perfect instrument for the antisocial."

(Allow me to plug my guitar scale visualiser thingy - www.fretlearner.com)

MPGK
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Re: chord help using the tonys chords pack

Post by MPGK » Sun Jul 04, 2010 9:32 am

gibson_ewok wrote:
Bill: That you actually take money for teaching people music and obviously don't even know your circle of fifths is not even insolent, it's a crime. I am SHOCKED.
Thats complete and utter bullshit! I don't take money for teaching people music. I don't even teach people music. I teach people about sound theory and production and I do it for free! The only things I take money for are donations on music I have written and albums which is completely fair.
You just have fun slandering people in public don't you? :P

Cheers,
Bill
http://www.mrbillstunes.com
You do take money for Tuition, that's what I read on your website. Even if you weren't, you're presenting yourself as a teacher here, linking to your website with every single post, and people who don't know better could very well believe what you're writing here, and it could very well be the biggest bullshit ever posted on a forum (see above). And being a teacher myself who has spent lots and lots of hard-earned money to get his own education, I get touchy when people teach anything that has to do with music while actually knowing shit about even the simplest basics.

Well... so as not to jack the thread (sorry 'bout that), I'll give you something to work with, OP.
These are the chords with all tensions you can build in a major scale, written as most jazz musicians would write them:

Imaj7(9/11/13) IIm7(9/11/13) IIIm7(b9/11/b13) IVmaj7(9/#11/13) V7(9/11/13) VIm7(9/11/b13) VIIm7b5(b9/11/b13)

e.g., in the key of G:
Gmaj7(9/11/13) Am7(9/11/13) Bm7(b9/11/b13) Cmaj7(9/#11/13) D7(9/11/13) Em7(9/11/b13) F#m7b5(b9/11/b13)
You'll notice each of these chords contains the complete major scale, stacked in thirds. You'll also notice there are some notes that will not sound good with others, e.g. the 11 on Imaj7.
Play around with these chords and tensions (don't use 'em all at the same time, that won't sound like soul at all ;)) before moving on to modulation, which means (temporarily) playing in another scale.
Also try starting on a different chord than Imaj7. The most common progression, especially in jazz and soul, is II-V-I, which is called turnaround, and you can spice this up with nice tensions - e.g. (in the key of G): Am9 D9(13) Gmaj9.

Most important of all: listen to a lot of music!
Especially the genre you want to pursue, of course. :)

And don't be discouraged, but it will take a lot of time to learn what you need to write contemporary gospel-style harmonies, harmonies there are virtually as advanced as they can get - talking about Western mainstream of course.

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