What makes a chord follow poorly or well from another?

5 hours ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

A more horizontal, contrapuntal way of thinking is almost always better.

I like this thought process - I tend to write horizontally and vertically, but a solid line is a solid line lol

But that makes sense though, if each "harmonizing" voice is just a solid line that works well against the other voices, then really there's no need to think about chord structure. The harmony will just come from the counterpoint (or the contrapuntal style writing)

Although I believe they have an intimate relationship, the horizontal writing of the Renaissance and Baroque is different from what can be seen in Romanticism.
Thanks to the conducting of voices, we see amazing progressions that work very well. This period is replete with such examples. An “extreme” case is the Wagnerian harmonies.

Liszt, Consolation IV.

Each chord is preceded by its dominant.

On 10/21/2024 at 6:43 AM, GospelPiano12 said:

I like this thought process - I tend to write horizontally and vertically, but a solid line is a solid line lol

But that makes sense though, if each "harmonizing" voice is just a solid line that works well against the other voices, then really there's no need to think about chord structure. The harmony will just come from the counterpoint (or the contrapuntal style writing)

 

Exactly

I disagree with the idea that harmonic progression should arise as a mere byproduct of following the rules of counterpoint. Some of the worst, most aimless-sounding music I've ever written came about as a result of writing counterpoint without considering the resulting harmonies as entities in their own right. I would even go so far as to say harmonic progression is more important than counterpoint. Plenty of nice-sounding music has limited contrapuntal value, whereas very little music with poor harmony is going to sound appealing. This is because human beings mainly perceive wholes (in music, this is harmonies), with the parts within those wholes being of lesser prominence.

On 10/28/2024 at 4:24 PM, Polaris said:

I disagree with the idea that harmonic progression should arise as a mere byproduct of following the rules of counterpoint. Some of the worst, most aimless-sounding music I've ever written came about as a result of writing counterpoint without considering the resulting harmonies as entities in their own right. I would even go so far as to say harmonic progression is more important than counterpoint. Plenty of nice-sounding music has limited contrapuntal value, whereas very little music with poor harmony is going to sound appealing. This is because human beings mainly perceive wholes (in music, this is harmonies), with the parts within those wholes being of lesser prominence.

 

I actually really like the way you put this - I completely agree with this. We who have studied theory would be more aware of the inner voices and contrapuntal lines, but to the untrained ear, what sounds good, sounds good. It could be the worst counterpoint you've ever heard, but if it has a "nice" sound, that's enough for them.

On 10/28/2024 at 2:24 PM, Polaris said:

I disagree with the idea that harmonic progression should arise as a mere byproduct of following the rules of counterpoint. Some of the worst, most aimless-sounding music I've ever written came about as a result of writing counterpoint without considering the resulting harmonies as entities in their own right. I would even go so far as to say harmonic progression is more important than counterpoint. Plenty of nice-sounding music has limited contrapuntal value, whereas very little music with poor harmony is going to sound appealing. This is because human beings mainly perceive wholes (in music, this is harmonies), with the parts within those wholes being of lesser prominence.

Harmonic "progression" is really quite simply the contrasting of one modal frame against another. This is why people say that "every melody implies a chord progression", because tonal melodies move through various modal frames in a phrase.  

When you are writing counterpoint, and thickening lines with contrary or oblique motion (especially in the bassline), if it is well written, it will inevitably fit within the same modal frames. 

It gets more complicated when you have a phrase that, in the span of perhaps just two bars, may involve three independent harmonized voices that use multiple modes constructed from a shared tonic, and scales that contain both major and minor thirds. Trying to analyze the "underlying harmony" of such pieces necessarily involves an abstraction. "Okay, the "harmony" in bar 1 is D....something. D5? Just a pedal tone?" . That's much less helpful (and eventually gets more complicated) than just identifying the modes and scales used by each line.

Thus, composing with the idea of "I will have a bar of D(?), then G, then F#m, then..." quickly becomes useless at worst, or highly restrictive at best.

I can honestly say that composing with the idea of chord progressions at the fore severely impeded my ability to compose "orchestral" sounding orchestral music for years, when I should have been viewing harmony as any and all vertical relationships between lines and internalizing how they all sound. It makes your choices much more deliberate. Now, if I compose a line that moves up stepwise from the tonic, I don't just plunk down the tonic chord because that would be standard practice. Instead, every other note supporting each note of the melody is deliberately chosen to achieve a specific aesthetic. It slows my composition down, but I can't argue with the results — results that have also attracted new clients over the years offering to pay.

I will go so far as to say with this "pop" approach to harmony: Especially where the orchestra is concerned, I don't think it's possible to compose an effective string quartet, let alone symphonic piece. Look no further than Hans Zimmer or the endless slew of YouTube "teachers" who can talk about chords until the cows come home, but ask them to write a piece more like Holst or John Williams and they simply cannot do it, because that music wasn't composed in that way.

It's like how you'll see all these channels doing "reductions" and analysis of JW's scores, and it's almost always a total mess with how they are writing chord names above the staff or even a full sentence trying to describe what is happening harmonically: You simply can't explain most of his orchestral pieces as "chords + melody". 

The "chord progression" approach really only works idiomatically for keyboard instruments and pop bands, tbh.

On 10/28/2024 at 8:24 PM, Polaris said:

I would even go so far as to say harmonic progression is more important than counterpoint. Plenty of nice-sounding music has limited contrapuntal value, whereas very little music with poor harmony is going to sound appealing.

If you follow the (renaissance) rules of counterpoint you won't end up with poor harmony.  If you subscribe to a more modern form which can be just polyphonic lines (without all the ordinances about intervals, leaps and so on) your harmony isn't limited.  It all depends what you're after musically. 

On 11/3/2024 at 11:24 PM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

Harmonic "progression" is really quite simply the contrasting of one modal frame against another. This is why people say that "every melody implies a chord progression", because tonal melodies move through various modal frames in a phrase.  

When you are writing counterpoint, and thickening lines with contrary or oblique motion (especially in the bassline), if it is well written, it will inevitably fit within the same modal frames. 

Well said.

Along with the rest of your post. 

4 hours ago, Quinn said:

Well said.

Along with the rest of your post. 

Thanks Quinn, and good point in your previous post as well