PSaun

Yeah, I can be a little long winded at times. Sorry about that.

It's not forbidden by any means, though it is certainly not as common as some other progressions. Use your ear if anything. If it sounds interesting and "right" to you in a particular context than go for it. I usually only have three rules I consistently stick to when it comes to harmony; no parallel fifths, no parallel octaves, no doubling a leading/chromatic tones. Everything else is fair game and a product of good voice leading, creativity, and invention. Bach chorales are great to look at because many times they utilize movements between voices and chords that are unexpected and interesting. I also recommend looking at the Well-Tempered Clavier, some of the preludes are harmonic treasures; Prelude No. 21 in Bb Major has a section that might as well be Gospel music, it's wonderful. Good luck.

Thank you for the clarification. It should be an interesting undertaking melding elements of early music to more recent developments. I'm in.

The augmented second isn't dissonant, it's just awkward to sing. Four-part harmony arises from polyphonic singing which is why it is avoided. The C to D# movement should be avoided in the various melodic lines, but the fall or leap of it's inversion, the diminished seventh, is perfectly acceptable so long as it is followed by a change in melodic direction. The Minor Tonality is a strange beast that arises from trying to make the Aeolian Mode have similar harmonic structure to the Ionian Mode, the voice leading problems are a result of the alterations we make so the harmony has a strong tonic-dominant relationship. You could also solve your problem by raising the C to a C# by semitone thereby evoking the Melodic Minor. However I stress that there are many regional scales around the world that make use of this interval. On example I'm fond of is the Hungarian Gypsy (Roma) Scale also called the Double Harmonic Minor. With a tonic on C it would be: C D Eb F# G Ab B C. It is quite unique in that it has a true tonic-dominant relationship between the I and V chords. It also has an augmented sixth chord (Ab-C-F# or Ab-D-F#) that can function as a predominant harmony to V. Even with this strong tonal relationship the melodies built from the scale with be rife with augmented seconds, but that is the nature of the scale. Another good scale example is the Harmonic Major which lowers the sixth by a half-step, which makes the Ionian Mode have a harmonic structure similar to the Aeolian Mode and is used for voice leading purposes the same way the Harmonic Minor is.

I'm in! It'll give something to do other than work this summer. How medieval are we talking? I know of a lot of good troubadour music that would be good for study.

You buy presents. You give gifts. I'd compose the piece and then give it as a gift free of charge. Don't take payment for something like this, it defeats the principal of it.

Okay this is a very tricky one. You've got to look at the cadences. The first cadence occurs in ms.4 on the 3rd beat as an FM chord, however after a change of position it immediately changes to CM it's subdominant. The next cadence on Dm from AM and then again on Dm from AM, and then the final on DM as a picardy third. While the interior progressions are in fact very modal, they do not solidify the tonality at the cadence. If the cadence had been BbM to CM perhaps we whould have placed it in the mixolyidan, but this is not the case.

Are you a robot?

Getting inspired is a matter of close to things you like and things you like to do, those will give the best inspiration. As for melody that is a far more subjective concept. A melody could be very dull on its own but become interesting when paired with the right counterpoint or harmony. The melody is the subjective part of composition in my opinion, while harmony is much more driven by some objective theory people have made for their particular style. Just work on it and do what feels "good" or "right".

Yes, that is correct.

What exactly are you looking for? The lyrics are pretty poppy so no really my style, but I'll help you out with whatever I can. With some thing like this I'd say grab a guitar and play some chords until you find something you like.

In regards to seventh chords the second inversion is still a no-no if its unprepared or isn't a passing chord, however the third inversion (the seventh in the bass) can be used freely even though it creates a prefect fourth with the third of the chord. In regards to broken chords you can think of them as block chords but you also have to be careful, melody notes can not move in octaves with the broken chord, or in fifths. Of course you can have more then four voices, heck have six, or seven, how bout ten, why not hundred? You can have as many voices as you want. The Ricecar from Bach's musical offering uses six voices, if you want a good example. Obviously with more voices the music becomes more dense and following the rules of voice leading becomes increasingly a chore, however you can have a voice or voices drop out at anytime only to have them return at a later time for dramatic effect, be creative. There's really no rule on the number of voices you can have in a composition. The rules of voice leading remain the same. I don't really have any websites for you to learn theory from, I mostly read books for that stuff. A good place to find works from composers is the IMSLP Music Library, it's online and its free they have thousands of works from Bach to Brahms, its a great place to go if you're looking for something to study. Hope this helps. Good luck.