Hello together, When one writes music consisting of melody and harmony, one can begin with the melody or with the harmony. If I would start with the harmony, are there any rules (guidlines) of how to write a good harmony sequence? I searched the net and the music-theory book I have, but found nothing. Any directions you can give me? Thanks! Nathan

Generally it's just down to picking a few chords from a scale and placing them in an order that you enjoy. The ending might conform to some sort of cadence (look up Perfect Cadence and Imperfect Cadence, for example), and you tend to start and/or end on the tonic chord (ie. the chord that the scale is based around), but the rest is up to you.

eg. If you were writing in A natural minor, you might choose one bar each of A minor, C major, E minor, finishing on A minor. Each of those chords uses only notes from A natural minor. You might add some suspended chords in between to add a little extra tension. But really the rule is that there are no rules, or at least, there are no universal rules. You might do well to take a critical look at the type of music you wish to write.

Lonely, usually harmonies are there to compliment the melody...so I don't quite see where you're going with this. Why would you come up with the harmony first? =P

Edit: That is, unless you're talking about polyphony...(multiple melodies or instances of the melody at once)

^^^

Agreed. I don't quite see the means to start with harmony first and then move to melody. Harmony can be looked upon as a figurative and literal, "shadow" of the melody. Without the melody there can be no shadow, if that makes sense.

As for creating a harmonic sequence...this is difficult to do without having extensive music theory training...hell, its even hard to do with extensive music theory training! Sometimes your ear will find a way to make an effective harmony, sometimes it will be your intellect...regardless, trial and error and seeing what works best for you and what you want from music is probably whats going to best formulate your ideas on what makes a productive harmony as well as give you the means to develop a template for future harmonic developments.

You''ll be good.

Ryan

[Edited by - Rain 7 on March 27, 2006 3:58:59 PM]

Quote: Original post by Rain 7
You'll be good.

lol. That's goin' in my sig some time.

I almost always write the melody first, and then write harmony around that.

The only time I write harmony first is if I want to use a harmonic sequence has a melody of sorts.

Honestly, I don't use any rules (consciously)... I just fool around and go with what sounds good!

Harmonies are great to compliment the melody, but I find it impossible to write a harmony first. When I compose a song, I'll start by a chord progression and then I'll start to develop a melody. As the song progresses, I'll start coming up with harmonies... actually i usually don't write any harmonies until the end.

I think that by some standards, beginning with a chord progression counts as starting with the harmony. This is especially true if you are taking care to use suspensions and inversions to improve voice-leading and the like.

is the harmony really there just to compliment melody?

are chords scales or are scales chords?

for example is c min pentatonic a d7add9 chord? or vice versa?

in answer to your question i wouldnt start working on a song in such a mechanical way. you got to be inspired, not working off the rules.

You can start with either a melody or harmony. It is all about figuring out your natural process, and then learning the other.

You could also write something that follows form as its primary fundamental.

For example, Debussy. (Probably bad example for game music :) Also Barbershop music, (Another baddie :))

His music was driven by harnomic structures. And in fact his music was not written using melodies that create motifs, but short harmonic and melodic motifs that created the entire form.

Dance/trance/techno music.

Although melody is very important in these pieces, why is it that a large portion of these genres/styles of music, all have the nearly the same harmonic pattern?

in games, melody lines must be carefully placed. you need to place it at a point where people can perceieve it to gain its full potential. Harmonies on the other hand, and tonalities, can be ambigiously placed in a score to create an environment.

This environment creates the mood. The melody creates the emotions. Think of harmony as a foundation to being able to write a successful melody. In collegiate music theory classes, you don't really learn how to construct a functioning melodic line (including contour, climax, direction, function, ect.) until you are far versed in voice leading/ tone tendancies and the progressions.

That being said. Melody is very important. I used to think that if people couldn't hum the piece, it wasn't worth writing, (which isn't true at all. People can remember other mental senses and perceptions as well.), but that also being said, the melody defeintely makes the harmonic progression all the more effective.

This is just what I gathered from having my ass kicked in musical theory/philosophy/ and composing for years! :)

Sean Beeson