How to use Chords and Write Harmonies: Part I

(or How Chords Work)

by Patrick Haworth (Quantinuity)

www.quantinuitymusic.com
Revision 1.1 (23/06/2006)

Table of Contents
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Introduction .....................................................................................................1 What are Chords? ...........................................................................................2 Intervals and How They Relate to Chords .......................................................3 Common Chord Types ....................................................................................4 Note Doubling & Chord Inversion ....................................................................7 Analysing a Melody and Determining its Chord Structure ...............................8 For More Information.....................................................................................10

1. Introduction
This is the first part of an introductory tutorial into using basic chords and harmonisation. Im writing this from my own knowledge of chords and music production, both gained from lessons in music theory when I was younger and from experience in music production. This tutorial is aimed at those new to music writing, who may not have any background in music theory. For this tutorial, Im assuming that you are at least moderately familiar with the basic 12-note western scale (i.e. the music note system used on just about every instrument in western countries) if you know the note names and what a sharp and a flat is, you should be fine. Familiarity with stave notation is not required, since I have included diagrams of chords both in traditional stave notation as well as a view of a piano roll (in this case from FL Studio). There is also an accompanying file in FL Studio 6 format that contains all of the examples. Subsequent tutorials will cover topics such as harmonisation, writing counter melodies etc.

If you find this tutorial useful or conversely if something in it doesnt make sense, or if you find any errors, Id love to hear from you contact me via my website, www.quantinuitymusic.com. This tutorial Copyright Patrick Haworth, 2006. This tutorial should only be redistributed in its original format with all the original files intact i.e. the zip file with all the original contents. Feel free to upload this tutorial on your own site, although if you do, please inform me its nice to know if people are finding my tutorials useful.

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How to use Chords and Write Harmonies: Part I

2. What are Chords?

Chords are one of the most fundamental components of music production without them, most music would be very boring indeed. So what are they? Chords are essentially groups of notes that sound good together, usually played simultaneously (although in a broader sense, the term can refer to the same group of notes played sequentially or in other configurations). The western music scale is even-tempered that is, the difference in pitch between adjacent notes on the scale is the same e.g. the difference in pitch between D and D# is the same as between C# and D. The pitch difference between two adjacent notes on the keyboard is called a semitone (a tone being two semitones):
semitone

tone

This means that if I play one group of notes that sounds good, and then move each note up or down by the same number of semitones, the new group of notes will still sound good (although they will sound at a higher or lower pitch, of course). This allows us to describe certain types of chords in terms of the intervals between the notes, rather than with actual note names. In fact, the relative frequencies of the intervals between the notes in most standard chords are all related by simple mathematical ratios (visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_of_the_Western_music_scale for more info). Generally, chords are usually referred to by common names, such as Major Triad, Minor Triad etc, and specified by the root (the base note when the chord is played in its natural position) e.g. C Major Triad. However, to know what these common names refer to, you need to know the structure of the chord.

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How to use Chords and Write Harmonies: Part I

3. Intervals and How They Relate to Chords

An interval is a gap between two notes, which can be measured by the number of semitones between them. Traditionally, naming of intervals has been based around the relative positions of the notes on the music stave. Below, you can see all the intervals available with a root note of C: m = minor M = major P = perfect TT = tritone As an example, P5 is a perfect fifth.

w bw w bw w bw w Gbwwwwbw w w w w w w w w ww
m2 M2 m3 M3 P4 TT P5 m6 M6 m7 M7

m2 M2 m3 M3 P4 TT P5 m6 M6 m7 M7

In the FL Studio file, go to the section marked Intervals in the playlist, to hear how different intervals sound.

When intervals are extended beyond one octave, the patterns simply repeat themselves i.e. the top note just goes up by an octave. The important thing to note here is that intervals can be combined if you play a major third and a perfect fifth together using the same root note, they will form a chord.

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How to use Chords and Write Harmonies: Part I

4. Common Chord Types

Several common chords are listed below. Note that you dont need to look up the chords each time if you know the root, or two of the notes, you can work out the rest of the chord simply based on the intervals between them. This is especially easy on a piano roll, and some even have built-in chord functions! Major Triad: This chord consists of three notes (hence the triad). The second note is four semitones above the base note, and the third note is seven semitones above the root. In other words, the second note is a major third above the root, and the third note is a perfect fifth above the root. The chord shown below is C major triad in its natural position (i.e. it is not inverted, which is covered in the next section), so the bottom note is C, the second note is E, and the third note is G.

Gw w w
M3

P5

Minor Triad: Again, this chord consists of three notes. The second note is a minor third (three semitones) above the base note, and the third note is a perfect fifth above the base note. The chord shown below is C minor triad, so the first note is C, the second is E flat*, and the third note is G.

G bw w w
m3

P5

* This note can also be written as D sharp, since they are in fact the same, however convention dictates that the note is written as E flat since the interval is a minor third.

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How to use Chords and Write Harmonies: Part I

The above types are the most common chords found in Western music, especially in pop, rock and dance music. However, there are several other chords that are used, albeit less frequently. Major Seventh: This chord consists of four notes the major triad plus the major seventh.

w w w w
M3

M7 P5

Dominant Seventh: The major triad plus the minor seventh.

bw Gw w w
M3

m7 P5

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How to use Chords and Write Harmonies: Part I

Minor Seventh: The minor triad plus the minor seventh.

w Gbbw w w
m3

m7 P5

In the FL Studio file, go to the section marked Chord Types in the playlist, to hear what these different chord types sound like.

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How to use Chords and Write Harmonies: Part I

5. Note Doubling & Chord Inversion

While this may seem fairly obvious, it is good to be aware of the fact that you can double up notes in chords. In other words, you can repeat some or all of the notes in different octaves:

G Gw w w

w w w w w w w w w w w

It is also important to remember that you can invert chords. That is, you can move the root to the top, or the root and the second note to the top.

In the FL Studio file, go to the section marked Inversions in the playlist, to hear the difference between the various inversions of the C major and C minor chords.

This can be useful in a number of ways, one of them being that the chord becomes a bit weaker the root not is not at the base so the chord doesnt sound as strong. In a lot of cases, especially in genres where chords arent necessarily played directly (in some hard dance tracks, for example), inversion is less obvious, but it still used quite a bit.

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How to use Chords and Write Harmonies: Part I

6. Analysing a Melody and Determining its Chord Structure

Part of the reason that a melody will have that edge is due to the particular chord structure or chord progression, so it can be important to be able to analyse a melody and work out exactly whats going on. Some people find it easiest to write the chord structure of a tune first, and then create the melody. Personally, I prefer to improvise and come up with the melody first, and then write the rest of the tune to fit. In this case, when its your own melody, you may be able do this by ear, but theres been several times when Ive not been sure about which note(s) to use, and being aware of the chord structure of the melody has been very useful. It is often the case that with a particular melody, more than one option for the chord structure is available. Consider the very simple melody below:

G
In the first part, we have the notes A and C, and in the second part, we have the notes G and B. For each, there are two chords that contain both notes: First Part (A, C): Second Part (G, B): F Major (F, A, C) G Major (G, B, D) or or A Minor (A, C, E) E Minor (E, G, B) The chord you would choose for each would depend entirely on how you wanted your tune to sound, or the surrounding chords (whether the progression sounds good or not).

In the FL Studio file, go to the section marked Chord Structure in the playlist, play it and notice the difference between the two patterns one uses the above melody with F Major then G Major, the other using A Minor then G Major.

If you have only one note, it gives you an even greater degree of freedom e.g. if I pick the note A, I can choose from the following chords:

A Minor (A, C, E) A Major (A, C#/Db, E) D Minor (D, F, A) D Major (D, F#/Gb, A) F Major (F, A, C) F#/Gb Major (F#/Gb, A, C#/Db)

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How to use Chords and Write Harmonies: Part I

Often, though, melodies arent as simple as the one above they will contain other notes which are not directly part of the chords but serve as a means of getting between them, which are called passing notes. These can get in the way of determining the correct chords, because they can be mistaken for being notes of a different chord. With a bit of practise, its easy to determine the chord structure of a melody and ignore the passing notes. In the melody below, the passing notes have been circled in red:

In the FL Studio file, go to the section marked Passing Notes in the playlist, and listen to the melody, and then to the same melody with the passing notes removed.

Ignoring the passing notes, this leaves the follow groups of notes: 1 A, C 2 A, C 3 F, A, C 4 G, B, D

Now, obviously, the last two chords are F Major and G Major, but what about the first two? The notes A and C could come from either F Major (F, A, C) or A Minor (A, C, E). If you try both of these chords at the beginning, using A Minor sounds much nicer, so the final chord progression is: 1 A Minor 2 A Minor 3 F Major 4 G Major

Of course, you mightve been able to tell from the beginning that A Minor was a good choice, simply based on the fact that the lower note is A, however, it is not always this easy.

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7. For More Information

A couple of other links that might be useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_(music). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_of_the_Western_music_scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_(music) Two online music production communities that I highly recommend: www.serious-sounds.net www.samplereactor.com

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