peter_traj

Me too mate.Its very dramatic going straight to a distant key from the original. My favorite is going from the tonic ,say Cmajor chord ,then change that to a C diminished and then straight to the Db major chord .The Cdiminished acts like a substitue dominant of Db (Ab C Eg Gb) and it audibly tonisizes the Db. Great mood change!!

Its my fault Montpelliar ,i should explain myself a little better so here it goes.As tumababa said Schoenberg termed modulating destiantions as regions.He looked at every modulation as an embelishment on the original key and not quite as a modulation even though a modulation had taken place.He calls it Monotonality.So first we establish Cmajor for example and that is our mother key and if we modulate to Gmajor then we have moved to the dominant "region".If we modulate to Ab from Cmajor we have moved to the "minor submediant region " and so forth.. He saw every chromatic note from C as a region of C and not as a new "mother" tonality.So C is Home and all modulations are expiditions away from home, but they never replace home entirey,they are just places(regions) that we visit for the sake of variety. Now if we go from C to F we introduce the Bb note and against the Cmajor key and we know that the Bb is darker than the B natural that we just heard in the original key and as we keep moving to the (cycle4) side,lets say Bb major we then have a Eb as well which aginst the mother key of C is a b3rd, so it gets even darker or minorish.But if we go the other way ,to the dominant side (cycle5),lets say to Gmajor we bring in the F# and this is definantly brighter casue it acts like C lydian which is a majorish ''bright sounding" mode. I have been taught that the sharp keys are a movment to a brighter sound and a move to the flat keys is a move to the darker sound. So if you make a sound that is dark (black velvet) and then you move to a brighter sound(diamond ring), the brighter key sounds even more brighter because you have just sounded its opposite.(dark to light) Its like when you really apreciate the sunshine after a couple of cloudy days,the sun seems so much more beautiful and aparent. I hope this explinantion is better but i really want to know if any of you guys see it this way??? Composers have different ways of looking at things and it is great to hear other opinions. I see harmony as the "painters canvas" and when i modulate i liken it to changing the shade of the canvas so the melody takes on a different color ,that is of course if i decide to keep the melody from also modulating. Thanks for listening and take care.

I would love to know how some of you guys veiw the regions when you modulate. Here is how i think of them and ill use the key of C major as the mother region. So if i write a harmony in C and establish it as the original tonality and then i decide to modulate to a new region i have 2 choices.Either i go to the right(cycle 5) or to the left (cycle.4) and of course each has its relative minor. Now i have to ask myself which one and why? I see the sharp side (cycle 5) as being the brighter side and the flat side(cycle 4) as the darker side.So the first question i ask myself is does my tune want a brighter modulation or deos it require a darker sounding change.Once i decide on that then i ask ,how far away do i want to go? close G or F or far F# or Db or in between somwhere. The further i go the more distant the relationship to the original and the more contrast it gives. When that is decided i like to balance the modulation with one to the opposite side before returning home to the original tonality.I see the original tonality as "home",the sharp side as "light" and the flat side as"dark".Do any of you guys think the same? I would love to hear your opinion. My composition teacher once asked me ,"why do jewlers put black velvet behind a diamond ring? Before i could answer he spat out'because it makes the ring spakle MORE than ussual and this is how he sees the regions. The tonality being the ring and the modulation being the contrasting "black velvet" and when you return after a modulation the home key sounds so much more "homely". Take care

You are absolutley correct,thanks for keeping me honest.And thankyou for your warm welcome. Take care.

First of all this forum is the ULTIMATE for guys like us to discuss these things so let me put my veiw down. The word dissonance does not mean "bad',"wrong",,"not nice sounding".It is a term that theorist put to 2 notes that have a complex frequency relationship and that means that they rub against each other instead of vibration together with less rub. Dissonance is like the salt and pepper and consonance is like the soup with no additives. When the dissoant note is put in with the consonant ones (extended triad 7th chord,9th,11th etc) the dissonant note wants to go in a particular direction and that is down to the nearest simple fequency(its natural resolution) but this doesnt mean that you "have" to do that.It all depends on the objective of what you are writing.It is an artistic decesion to treat dissonance traditionally or to contradict tradition. Dont think of these extensions as chords ,but think of them as flavouring the basic underlying triad.You can argue that they are chords of course but the truth is that chords are born from moving voices and that theorists decided to label them as a vertical structure, but the level at which they work is stricktly horizontal. The consonant notes of a triad vibrate so well together because they all belong to one single overtone series,and the triad has no imediate need to move(context based of course). So how do they work? A V7 or V9 etc still functions as a dominant of the I chord so long as the the 5th degree of the scale is supported or implied as being the root.The extra tones are just tints and shades for variety and dont change its function unless they overpower the root as root of the sonority.These extra tones drive the music forward because they seek resolution and at the same time add salt and pepper to the soup(triad).So they work the same way as a normal triad built on the same degree,you just have more note to resolve if you want to resolve them. Dont ever say "this chord sounds dissonant" because you are implying that it sounds out of place or wrong or yuck!.Dissonance is what is making it sound that way but the whole sound is not "dissonanting" .Only one note is tainting/coloring, the uderlying consonance(triad).How can we say that it sounds dissonant when the majority of it is connsonant?.I prefer to say that it sounds harsher than this or that or richer etc. Here is an analolgy to explain myself better.you take a can of white paint(connsonance) and add a little red to it(dissonance).the color becomes white with a very subtle shade of red in it.(extented chord). Now how can you look at that and say that it is red(dissonant)!!! or that it looks dissonant(red)!! .It really looks like white with a shade of red and and i would say that it looks great or ugly depending on which furniture(musical context) i put against it. It really is that simple,though i am expecting some of you to dissagree,but hey,that what forums are all about and i look forward to a healthy debate with you guys. I am glad that i finnaly found a forum where the guys are educated in music and not just arrogant 3 chord wonder kids that think they know everything.I cop so much abuse in my home town from the local musicians because they think that if you have musical knowledge then you are an un-musical robot. Thanks guys and take care.

this is an strange comment . the voice is actually a direct slave of the mind .what ever you produce with your voice comes from your brain. your inner ear is the instrument and your voice is the meduim. but anyway i didnt mean that you have to sing to write the music.that would be ridiculous!! you sing the 12 notes of music to program them into your inner ear and then you dont have to sing them anymore ,you just think them instead and they come alive inside your head. this is the best way to find the most original theme for a composition.and once you have that theme,the rest is easy.

lets clear up this dominant thing. the V does not have to have a tritone for it to function as a dominant chord.Because the V is the 5th degree of the scale it is a dominant in relation to the I and it wants to move to the I. This is because the V is the closest overtone to I in the overtones series. now if you add the b7th the to V you get a dominant "7th" chord,which does have a tritone. so you have a dominant triad and a dominant 7th chord and they both function as dominant to the I because of the relation of the 5th bettween their roots. Another thing to remember is if you put the IV triad before the V triad there is a tritone wedged bettween them.the root of the IV to the 3rd of the V. because this is a melodic interval and not present in the harmony of V it does not have as much impact but the effect is still there. now when you use the II chord and sharpen it 3rd to make it a major ,it becomes the V/V "ONLY" because of the relation bettween the roots . the only reason we sharpen the 3rd of II to make it a major chord is because a dominant functioning chord needs to have a leading tone to the tonic and that is what the sharpened 3rd becomes. i hope this clears it up guys. you really should take the time to study music composition because all these questions will be covered in your study,but if you cant ,just keep asking questions on this site. there is always someone willing to help.including me. but just remember, that if you want to understand how music works and you rely on a music forum for that ,then expect to be here for a long long time.

using the term extended dominants is wrong. you can extend a dominant function for eg; I..IV..V7..V6/5.The V6/5 chord extends the dominant function of V. but thats it. whoever gave you that term might have been talking of a dominant 9th chord which you could call an extended dominant 7,but most musicians would not understand what you mean by it.

N.S CANZANO ,you impress me very much with your passion for music at such a young age. most guys your age just want to be rock stars, but you have a genuine love for music which is rare for someone your age.i wish you all the sucsses in the world. please tell me are you studing composition? and if not why?

thats a good point fingernail, we should never disregard what came before ,but we also should not dwell on it. the move to atonal music was like the desperate "new" thing,but i belive that tonality is intristic to nature. tonal music is not just a cultural phenomenon but is a mimic of nature. the overtone series is the D.N.A of tonality with the fundamnetal being supported by its 5th and then its caracteristic modal stamp, the 3rd. atonal music ,i belive ,is best used for variety and special effect,because it contradicts nature. the world of tonal music is still ripe for invention. the endless combinations of rhythmic,melodic etc devices leaves a lot to be discovered.

you have a good point lightwing. but there really is no music in just a single articulated interval or chord. sure there is harmony present and yes it is vertical but music is not music until it is juxtaposed with another musical articulation following the first. and as soon as you play the second chord ,note etc you put a melodic relationship in motion that seeks resolution and that is stricktly horizontal. even if you just juxtapose a string of chords one after the other the complex frequencies that exist bettween the chords alwys seek the more simple ones and this is the driving element in music.(the dissonance). it is imposible to juxtapose 2 chords and not produce a dissonant interval wedged inbetween them, and while the disonance is present there will always be a horizontal urge toward connsonace. it is the engine which drives all musicall phenomena the only time that you can say music is vertical is at the cadence because all melodic tendancy has been extigushed and there is not tendance for forward movment.

study the old masters to learn the mechanics of music and form in a tonal context. once you understand the logic of musical structure and motion which is very difficult unless you have a master composer explain exactly what is happening in the music you should move on and not dwell on the the old great composers. the world does not need another bethoven of strauss,it needs an exciting new figure to advance the the musical vocabulary and push forward the boundaries of the new and not the old. many compositon students get infatuated with the great composers ,thinking that they were the absolute pinnicale of musical expression. they were in their time ,but they were also critisized for being bold and daring and new. most of the greats were not even appreciated and reviered in there time and it was only after they died and the next generation rediscoverd their music that they were put up on a pedistal. we have the benifit of hindsight. we can sift through hundreds of years of music and say that this guy and that guy were revolutionary,but in their time ,most of the truly creative composers were outcast for being to bold and new. study the common practise period of composers only to learn the physics of music and then try to be as inventive and original as possible. muscians that dedicate their lives to learning the works of 1 or 2 composers do not do a great service to the advancement of musical appreciation. if their dedication makes them happy and fulfils their expectations then that is a good thing and no one should critisize them for that. there is nothing wrong in idolizing a historic muscician but if that musician was still alive i bet he would say to you ,"you have all my influence in you ,now move on and be yourself,express yourself and not just a shadow of my work".. i am not trying to say that you should not write romantic or classical music ,what i mean is that many composers compositons echo and have the fingerprints of their idols,and when you listen to the composition you can easily identify those similarities. this is why the best outcome is when you have many influences and not just 1 or 2 composers. when you have many influences the creative side of your brain becomes like a rich soup that froths with new possibilities. i might sound pretentious but this is my honest opinion. bethoven is the classic example. he studied all before him and not just 1 or 2 composers and apart from being an imensely talented muscician he always strived to create something new and unique. not something that you could say "oh that sounds very Bach'ish of Mozart'ish. i appreciate the old greats more than most because these guys took no shortcuts in their quest to undersand music. but they never dwelt on the past .they always tried to sow the seeds for the future and bring something new and fresh out and that is why i will always have the most respect for them.

harmony is a product of multiple lines moving in the horizonatal domain. renneisance polyphony is the grandfather of all harmony. it just took music theorists and composers along time to realize that. music is NOT a vertical phenomenon,it is a horizontal one. it just happens to coincide with other horizontal voices that are above and below its pitch. even in homophonic music the horizontal forces of the line are driven by dissonance,even though there is very little melodic independance. the purpose of harmony in homophonic music is to add depth to the principle voice and either provide tonal and harmonic clarity or confusion and every subtle hue in bettween. the principle of harmony in polyphonic music is to marry the independant lines of the melodies to a intelligable whole. when two lines of melody meet and are sounded together they need to form a harmonic clarity so as not to interfere with each other. when you can control the vertical lines you can bring in dissonace in places for a stunning artistic effect.

what you have to do if you are serious about composing music is to learn how music acctually works. whenever you put 2 notes togehther you start off a chain event that needs to be controled. you see music moves and it actually has a natural tendancy to move in a particular direction,and the most effective composers of the past and the present understand the implications of these tendancies and have the knowledge to to control them. forget about just trying to write music from your creative mind unless you have a LOT of years of influence and a huge musical vocabulary under your belt. study composition and all the melodic devices that are used to manipulate melody and harmony and you will be on the road to controling how your compositions turn out and not them controling you. music is like a wild untamed beast that can manifest into the most beutiful and the most ugly sounds . by learning how to control the beast you can steer it toward your personal intentions and not let it steer you.

you need to learn how music works.that way you will be in a good position to identify just why what you are writing sounds boring. music is about a juxtaposition of consonace and dissonance at the very core and an artistical proportioning of the two within a thematic framework is what makes music alive and interesting. you should find a compositon teacher at your local conservitore and study the mechanics of musical motion,then everything will make sense. nothing in music will be a mystery any more.you will understand why one particular composition sounds boring and the other exiting,and when you can identify that you are on the way to writing great music.