Question about music theory (harmonization)

[mromgwtf]

Hi, first of all I have to say I'm a total noob at music theory so please use normal human readable language, not that advanced music shitt

There's my question:
Let's say you have a bassline that goes like this:
I - I - II- III

And every note is a 1/8.

How do you go about harmonizing this? Do I need to swap chords so fast? Like, if the key is C minor, then the chord progression would be:
I - I - II - I
Cmin - Cmin - Dmaj - Cmin

At 1/8 notes. I just don't understand it. And what if I want to add some slow synth, that holds one note for like 4 bars? The chord progression changes so quickly. Someone please explain.

[test_recordings]

Whatever the bass note is, make it relevant to the synth chord as either the same root or fifth or third, or add it as second/ninth, sixth or seventh. Really for dub and dubstep though, your synth should complement the bass, adding harmonics around it.

That explanation might help, it's what I do anyway.

[Crimsonghost]

I wouldn't harmonize chords. It gets mushy, sonically. If you want to harmonize a lead,or to a lesser extent a baseline, try working in 3rds or 5ths from the root note.

If I'm reading you right (correct me if I'm not) it sounds like your trying to find chords to play over other chords? Say you have your chord progression (I,I,II,III) and you want something to play under it, try using just 1 chord that complements the baseline (usually the root note if the key). This is called a Tonic.

From Wiki;
In music, the tonic is the first scale degree of a diatonic scale and the tonal center or final resolution tone.[4] The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord. More generally, the tonic is the pitch upon which all other pitches of a piece are hierarchically referenced. Scales are named after their tonics, thus the tonic of the scale of C is the note C.

Hope that helps.

[Icetickle]

I would just test different chords playing slower underneath that dat bassline.

[SunkLo]

How fast the harmony changes is entirely up to interpretation. You could reduce a whole song to a single cadence, or you could break down every quarter note into a new chord (A la Giant Steps) A popular jazz harmonization technique is taking a single chord and splitting it into two different chords, and then splitting those chords in two, etc etc. Obviously there's some rhythmic constraints; it's not easy to have really frequent chord changes without it sounding frantic.

For the bassline in question, considering how it only spans half a bar, I'd just harmonize it with a single chord. Perhaps a C-9? What you choose is going to depend on what comes after this part. For instance I think C-, C-6, Abmaj7, Abmaj9 works well for a i-VI progression. So the bassline you've got now would sit under the two C chords and then move to probably a chord tone of the Ab chords. If you were going to Ebmaj instead of Ab, I'd probably swap the C chords for C9s. Voice leading is the practice of picking chord voicings that transition smoothly into each other without big leaps or discontinuities in each line. If you imagine your chords as being made up of different voices, like a choir, you don't want the person singing a bass note in one chord to have to jump up really high to the soprano range to sing a melody note in the next chord. You want each individual voice in the chord to be able to step over onto the nearest note that belongs to the next chord. To achieve this, you'll have to re-arrange your chord voicings. Try out different voicings and you should find some that transition well between each other.

You don't have to pick chords that sit with their root in the bass. The C in your bassline could actually be the third of an Abmaj chord, or the fifth of an F minor chord. If you're going to have a droning lead or bass or whatever, the chords can still change, as long as they still contain the drone note. Switching up chords, voicings and inversions can get you some pretty dynamic sounding chords, despite the implied harmony not actually changing that much.

[drake89]

How fast the harmony changes is entirely up to interpretation. You could reduce a whole song to a single cadence, or you could break down every quarter note into a new chord (A la Giant Steps) A popular jazz harmonization technique is taking a single chord and splitting it into two different chords, and then splitting those chords in two, etc etc. Obviously there's some rhythmic constraints; it's not easy to have really frequent chord changes without it sounding frantic.

For the bassline in question, considering how it only spans half a bar, I'd just harmonize it with a single chord. Perhaps a C-9? What you choose is going to depend on what comes after this part. For instance I think C-, C-6, Abmaj7, Abmaj9 works well for a i-VI progression. So the bassline you've got now would sit under the two C chords and then move to probably a chord tone of the Ab chords. If you were going to Ebmaj instead of Ab, I'd probably swap the C chords for C9s. Voice leading is the practice of picking chord voicings that transition smoothly into each other without big leaps or discontinuities in each line. If you imagine your chords as being made up of different voices, like a choir, you don't want the person singing a bass note in one chord to have to jump up really high to the soprano range to sing a melody note in the next chord. You want each individual voice in the chord to be able to step over onto the nearest note that belongs to the next chord. To achieve this, you'll have to re-arrange your chord voicings. Try out different voicings and you should find some that transition well between each other.

You don't have to pick chords that sit with their root in the bass. The C in your bassline could actually be the third of an Abmaj chord, or the fifth of an F minor chord. If you're going to have a droning lead or bass or whatever, the chords can still change, as long as they still contain the drone note. Switching up chords, voicings and inversions can get you some pretty dynamic sounding chords, despite the implied harmony not actually changing that much.

WOAH lookout, someone that actually knows a lot about music theory round hurr!

well said, like a B0$$

[mromgwtf]

How fast the harmony changes is entirely up to interpretation. You could reduce a whole song to a single cadence, or you could break down every quarter note into a new chord (A la Giant Steps) A popular jazz harmonization technique is taking a single chord and splitting it into two different chords, and then splitting those chords in two, etc etc. Obviously there's some rhythmic constraints; it's not easy to have really frequent chord changes without it sounding frantic.

For the bassline in question, considering how it only spans half a bar, I'd just harmonize it with a single chord. Perhaps a C-9? What you choose is going to depend on what comes after this part. For instance I think C-, C-6, Abmaj7, Abmaj9 works well for a i-VI progression. So the bassline you've got now would sit under the two C chords and then move to probably a chord tone of the Ab chords. If you were going to Ebmaj instead of Ab, I'd probably swap the C chords for C9s. Voice leading is the practice of picking chord voicings that transition smoothly into each other without big leaps or discontinuities in each line. If you imagine your chords as being made up of different voices, like a choir, you don't want the person singing a bass note in one chord to have to jump up really high to the soprano range to sing a melody note in the next chord. You want each individual voice in the chord to be able to step over onto the nearest note that belongs to the next chord. To achieve this, you'll have to re-arrange your chord voicings. Try out different voicings and you should find some that transition well between each other.

You don't have to pick chords that sit with their root in the bass. The C in your bassline could actually be the third of an Abmaj chord, or the fifth of an F minor chord. If you're going to have a droning lead or bass or whatever, the chords can still change, as long as they still contain the drone note. Switching up chords, voicings and inversions can get you some pretty dynamic sounding chords, despite the implied harmony not actually changing that much.

Thank you very much, very good post.
When I was writing that bassline I had no chord progression going on, now I understand I have to first make a chord progression then write ANYTHING.

[firstboyonthemoon]

I dummied up a thing that has changing chords (Cmin, Fmin, Cmin, Gmin) over the bassline described in the OP. Maybe it'll be a real thing someday. Well, probably not.

Soundcloud

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

snip

Thank you very much, very good post.
When I was writing that bassline I had no chord progression going on, now I understand I have to first make a chord progression then write ANYTHING.

You don't really have to have a chord progression before you write anything, though a lot of people find that it really helps them figure out a direction they want the music to flow in, plus it gives you a good rough framework to build a harmonic pallet around.

The point is though that you can equally build a great 'musically working' tune from a single motif, or just an idea, something you've noodled out on the keyboard/midi roll that sounds good to you. The trick is to have enough of an understanding of musical harmony to properly harmonize the different elements. the same goes for developing the motif itself.

Knowing the theory behind how different intervals relate harmonically, how scales work melodically, and how they all fit into a wider theoretical framework together, gives you the ability to take that one thing that sounds good on its own and already have a pretty good grasp on what other notes will fit around it consonantly/dissonantly, what key you have in mind, how that will effect the mood, what scales you can draw from (i.e. what notes to use/avoid); basically all of the stuff SunkLo was touching on and a whole lot more. theory isn't just about learning scales it's about learning the relationships between intervals (frequency relationships) melodically and harmonically and where and how they can be used to create a sense of movement from consonance to dissonance back to consonance in your music (arguably the basis of all music with any kind of progression to it).

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

Hi, first of all I have to say I'm a total noob at music theory so please use normal human readable language, not that advanced music shitt

There's my question:
Let's say you have a bassline that goes like this:
I - I - II- III

And every note is a 1/8.

How do you go about harmonizing this? Do I need to swap chords so fast? Like, if the key is C minor, then the chord progression would be:
I - I - II - I
Cmin - Cmin - Dmaj - Cmin

At 1/8 notes. I just don't understand it. And what if I want to add some slow synth, that holds one note for like 4 bars? The chord progression changes so quickly. Someone please explain.

When you say I - I - II- III are you talking about a chord progression or an interval progression? because a chord progression generally wouldn't work for a bassline, the bass register is too low down for chords to work down there with any kind of clarity, bases are almost always (worried to be so broad as to say 'always', but, you know) monophonic for this reason. They define the root notes/strong points of a harmonic progression. See this is where it gets a little complicated because there are so many different situations where you'd do different things when choosing a bassline/melody and how that fits in harmonically with your other elements.

If you're using 1/8 notes, that doesn't mean the chord progression has to go through it's chord changes every 1/8 note. You can just use the chord progression for the whole measure. in 4/4 that'd be one chord for every whole note (bar, 8/8) and draw 1/8 notes into a motif using notes from that chord, for that one bar. Like using C C G C C G Eb C (or whatever) as 1/8ths for that first 'Cmin chord' bar. Then the next bar you switch it up to pulling in notes from whatever that chord is, so on and so forth.

That way you can drop notes above the bass using the same notes from that chord (just use octave doubling [same notes but higher], or 7ths/9ths above the triad), this way you can be absolutely sure that the lead melody will sit harmonically with the bass, because you're using notes from the same chord, just in a different way (frequency/order wise, or more, whatever you want really)

Use a chord progression in longer chunks, as a blueprint on where to shift the entire melodic/harmonic framework as the tune goes along. It doesn't mean if you're using 1/8ths or 1/4ths or whatever that the chord progression has to follow the beat lengths of the individual notes.

If you want a synth that holds one note for 4 bars (one whole measure) then just use a note/chord from the scale. You know, either the key note of the scale, or the fourth/fifth or whatever, or something that you know fits harmonically with the chord prog you're using (a lot of things will work if you're sticking to a chord progression built from a scale). same goes for if you're using a chordal drone, just make sure the melodies of your other elements and how they harmonically relate, are all in harmony with the chordal drone. They all will be in some way regardless of how much thought you put in to it, it just depends on how consonant/dissonant you want the harmonic relationships to be.) A lot of this sorts its self out automatically if you use chord progressions as a blueprint to base your melodies/harmonies around. but the theory behind it doesn't have to be applied to using chords, they're just used like this because they inherently have a certain type of harmony that 'works', the point being, you can do the same thing they're doing for you on your own in your own way if you take the time to learn a bit about the underlying theory of why they work the way they do.

[frenchboy]

This video should answer all your questions and more

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

Errr, sort of. Just watched it and although it goes some way to covering some of the basics it's also full of really bad advice and some of the stuff he says is just plain wrong. You can tell he's learned this stuff on his own because he's confusing a lot of things and he, erm, sort of mixes bits of different things together in in-accurate ways. Like saying a minor second 'can be' a dominant chord. That doesn't even make sense. A dominant chord is a chord built off the dominant interval of a scale, which is the fifth. He also says similar things about the tonic, confusing it with other things. The tonic is just the key note of a scale, the tonic chord is a chord built from the first scale degree, but he says a whole bunch of chords can be a 'tonic' chord, because of some unrelated reason. The video is full of this kind of miss-information. It's a shame because if you don't know what he's talking about then I can see how it'd sound like he knows what he's talking about, because I think he thinks he does, he sort of half has it though, but I wouldn't use this as a learning source, it'd probably confuse your attempts at learning theory more than help.