[Garet]

Hey I was wondering in terms of composition of chords, there is more than the 1-3-5, there are 4th, 7th, 9th's and on and on,
What chords are you into using a lot apart from 5th's?
What is a helpful way of coming up with endless chords? I usually just pick a chord in the key it's in and mess around until I can find something I really like. Do you find the circle of fifth's helpful with this sort of thing?

[saneliv]

Well... one way to look at it is you can have a max of 12 different tones per chord... and the chord is still determined by the lowest consonant interval. Today the only really nasty dissonance is the minor 9th and if you put more than 2 octaves in between you don't even hear that as a dissonance... so have fun building massive chords

[relic]

I use the chords that speak the message my music wants to send? I don't tend to fixate on certain chords conciously, though somehow there does seem to be tendency towards moods in my music. I like exploring chords in program called Harmony Navigator.

[Garet]

Originally Posted by saneliv

Well... one way to look at it is you can have a max of 12 different tones per chord... and the chord is still determined by the lowest consonant interval. Today the only really nasty dissonance is the minor 9th and if you put more than 2 octaves in between you don't even hear that as a dissonance... so have fun building massive chords

Sounds like a plan! fun fun fun!

[Garet]

Originally Posted by relic

I use the chords that speak the message my music wants to send? I don't tend to fixate on certain chords conciously, though somehow there does seem to be tendency towards moods in my music. I like exploring chords in program called Harmony Navigator.

Sounds inturesting, in terms of mood and feeling do you have a certain process you go through like, "okay, this will be a minor chord due to it being a minor mood" or do you go through the program and choose a chord and build off that mood from there? In other terms, do you have pre composition ideas or do you go with the flow?

[relic]

Originally Posted by Garet

Sounds inturesting, in terms of mood and feeling do you have a certain process you go through like, "okay, this will be a minor chord due to it being a minor mood" or do you go through the program and choose a chord and build off that mood from there? In other terms, do you have pre composition ideas or do you go with the flow?

If I am using the software at all for a specific song I explore a progression there, but usually I just noodle around on the keys until I come up w something I like.

[Garet]

Originally Posted by relic

If I am using the software at all for a specific song I explore a progression there, but usually I just noodle around on the keys until I come up w something I like.

Sounds good, have fun creating music link us up if you want

[zjohnson17]

I personally like the sound of minor 7th chords. Especially the tonic minor 7th in a minor key and the fifth scale degree minor 7th.

Also at the end of chord progressions, the fifth scale degree which is used a lot as a cadence to show that it is the end of the progression, you can add the dominant 7th there to make it want to go back to the tonic(main/1st scale degree chord) even more. It just adds more tension and release.

[Garet]

Sounds good, do you study music?

[zjohnson17]

I recently changed majors, but I have 2 years of college classical music training. I also have been playing guitar and piano for a while so my knowledge of music theory is definitely past my production knowledge at this point.

[Garet]

Originally Posted by zjohnson17

I recently changed majors, but I have 2 years of college classical music training. I also have been playing guitar and piano for a while so my knowledge of music theory is definitely past my production knowledge at this point.

Good stuff, being classically trained in music has more importance that what people think these days

[Lepstok]

Split the octave into 3 chords of 4 tones. The only requirement is that every chord contains at least 1 minor 2nd interval. So for example
Chord 1 C C# D D#
Chord 2 E F G# B
Chord 3 F# G A A#

Then invert them or layer them on top of "normal" (tonal) harmony. You can use as many notes of the chords as you want in any order.

[saneliv]

You can also try spreading out a minor 2nd to a minor 9th and then make it more appealing by inserting a tone in the middle. For example, if you insert a tone a fourth below the top tone, eg. E C F, the consonance of the 6th and 4th overwhelm the dissonance of the minor 9th. You can actually use the above as a C major family chord

[Thetagram]

I like Sus2 and Sus 4 Chords. Removing the the third note and replacing with either the 2nd or 4th note of the key.
In the context of C Major a sus2 would be CDG and a sus4 would be CFG.

Major 7th Chords are nice as well, take the major triad and add the 7th note of the scale on top. In the context of C Major that would be CEGB

[Garet]

Originally Posted by Thetagram

I like Sus2 and Sus 4 Chords. Removing the the third note and replacing with either the 2nd or 4th note of the key.
In the context of C Major a sus2 would be CDG and a sus4 would be CFG.

Major 7th Chords are nice as well, take the major triad and add the 7th note of the scale on top. In the context of C Major that would be CEGB

Sounds good. Yeah I'm doing a degree in music so i'm familiar with those chords, the hardest part is the ear training identifying the sus2, sus 4, dom 7, Dim and Aug chords