Chord progressions

Hey again everyone

Probably a stupid question but I would appreciate an answer. I think maybe this is just a case of using your ear, but if there is some theory behind it it would cool to be pointed in the right direction.

When I write chord progressions I stick with the diatonic chords and use chromatic chords when I want something "out there" However i have recently been listening to this piece and have noticed the chords don't seem to be based on a scale, but it all flows very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OSjxWJuuqQ

For 0:00 - 0:18 it's alternating between D and Am

At 0:22 it goes to Bb

Then at 0:25 it goes at Gm

Finally at 0:29 it goes to D

There isn't a scale with all these chords, yet they work incredibly well. The melody also seems to change into different scales but it still sounds incredibly fluid, no note sticks out.

I would love to be able to doing something like this, but like I said when I do anything outside of he scale I'm either the chords or the melody stick out more than I would like.

Looking at the chords above, is there a reason (probably really obvious :headwall: ) they flow so well with the melody?

Thanks for your time, this forum has been a great help for me.

Ohhhhh yes there is! It's called Modulation (i.e., moving from one key to another), and, since you don't know about it already, you'll be in for a treat! Essentially, it's noticing the overlap between keys: if I played the notes G-A-B-C to you, and asked what key was it in, what would you say? C major (V-I)? But what about G major (I-IV)? E minor (i-iv)? Notice in the last two, the same notes are used to indicate the first and fourth degrees' triads in two different keys. Basically, it's open to interpretation; a single chord isn't in any one key - it takes the chords of a cadence to define the tonality.

You can look it up on Wikipedia or some music theory site, but the idea is that, you can proceed in whatever key you're in, then if you want to change key, you move nice and smoothly to a chord in that key that's also in the other (called a pivot chord), then move to a chord in your new key (that isn't in the old one) that can be reached smoothly from your current chord and suddenly, you're in a different key without any nasty sticking out chords or notes, and those of us with wooden ears who can't tell their perfect fourths from fifths are none the wiser. That's one way to do it.

There are several other methods you can look up, but that should give you an idea of how chords and notes outside the key are reached without any jarring notes.

The first 30 sec is clearly in D minor, with a D major tonic. Such use of the picardy 3rd is unusual, but it works well. The piece continues in D major. Modulations are not always necessary, you can switch to a new (usually a 5th, 4th or even a 3rd related) key after a cadence.

That falls under modulation too, though, since they just define it as changing key. Direct change of key by phrase is as legitimate a modulation (in the sense that it is no less 'modulatory') as a modulation by pivot chord.

I didn't hear any change of the tonic from 0:00 - 0:29. In any case it doesn't lend itself to be analysed through a traditional viewpoint. The accidental additions aren't from closely related keys. There is no pivot chord (no overlap between keys).

Speaking as a person who has nearly played the entire Final Fantasy X Piano Collections, (Shut up. Don't judge me.) and thus has experience with the tonal language of Japanese video game music, I would offer this explanation: it is fluid because the roots of the chords are all from the same diatonic scale, namely D minor. The progressions here are common in modern tonal music, and the sort of thing I would expect from Final Fantasy; I've seen them countless times.

This is called mode mixture (or modal interchange). Essentially, you're in D major, but you're borrowing chords from the D minor scale. As Ian points out, there's no change in tonic (you're staying in "D-something").

You've already seen one form of this in the other thread, where you're in A minor, but you're borrowing the major V chord from A major. You're just summoning up foreign chords from a parallel universe scale.

I suggest for hearing precedents of modal mixture is to listen to a few of Chopin's Mazurkas. But here is probably an extreme example of modal mixture from Chopin's Op 10 No 7 Etude in C major , but he borrows heavily from the C natural minor scale (E flat, A flat and B flat) and a little from E harmonic minor (F#, D#). Without these "foreign tones" the piece would sound like a Czerny exercise with a touch of renaissance.

Anyway, I advise you look at the score of this piece as you will see that C natural minor and E harmonic minor share a common tone D#/E flat which reinforces the modal mixture of alternating minor and major chords. Plus it is one of my favorite piano pieces!

I would analyse it that way:

The very beginning ist in D mixolydian. Than the A minor chord is used as a pivot chord to swap to D minor , and the first part ends with a plagal cadence (iv-I) with a picardy third.

The rest of the piece is just D major.

Thanks for the help everyone, very helpful advice. I have done some studying on basic modulation and modal exchange and believe this will greatly enhance my compositions.

You know, I think I'm just gonna start writing the rhythm first and then come up with a melody by messing around over it until I get something I like. I believe melody is by far the most important thing in music so I have always tried to write the melody first, but I can't seem to come up with a good melody unless I write it over some decent rhythm...and all this stuff I have learned about chord progressions recently, for some reason I struggle to apply it when trying to put it to a melody or writing both rhythm and melody simultaneous . I have two ideas I am gonna try out and see which works best for me:

1: Write a chord progression using what I have recently learned from all you guys and being aware of what I am doing as I write it.

2: Write a rhythm part, choosing the next chord purely by what sounds good to my ear without caring about what key I'm in or all the modulation/chromaticism that might be going on. Then figure out the theory behind how my chords work and see if I can write a nice melody over it.

Thanks again everyone

Sounds like a good strategy. Here is another one:

A) Choose no rhythmn and just notate pitches in dots for short durations and circles for long ones. Of course keep it in a clef, like a treble or bass. Before you write set some "goalposts" . So, say you have a melody in F and you want to reach a midpoint to rest a little without stopping completely, well you could climb over an octave to G as the G belongs to the dominant of F major - a C major chord. TO get some freedom set you high points and low points of the melody in advance and then figure out how you will get your melody from point A to B.

After doing this,if you do come up with something a little awkward or not what you like just finish the melody with this approach and then write another melody.