Something to add to what Brian said. EXPERIMENT!!

There is not techinically a wrong asnwer, and for ANY progression that someone comes up with, I am sure that someone has done something similiar before.

A harmonie's context can be changed easily as well. Using multiple color tones, and techniques of instrumentation/orchestration.



Choirs can get away singing tone clusters, whlie a pack of Oboe may not :)! (Well they could :), just may not please the ears!)

Sean Beeson

I wrote a set peice where I used oboes playing in clusters to imitate what I think is called a sho in japanese music, so there you go.

Granted, the oboes were coming from my synthesizer, not from real players... I can't imagine how awful it would have sounded from real players. :D

Well, harmony is very complex. There are some rules/guidelines for harmonies, but then again rules are meant to be broken!

I'd recommend this book. It's a pretty interesting read, and keeps you involved with little exercises throughout. I haven't finished it yet, I've only gotten a couple of chapters into it. The first couple of chapters are largely about melody (and the general rules of it) but it has some good info on chord progressions, harmony, and IIRC a small section on counterpoint.

You might also want to take a look into Berklee's website, I've seen a couple of nice composition tidbits on it before.

hehe, Russo was the head/founder of my school's music department until he passed away a couple years ago...neat guy. VERY wierd, but brilliant. I agree that his "Composing Music" book is a good place for beginnning composition if you don't have a lot of theory and other training behind you.