How do you create chords progressions in an intuitive way, without knowing the rules of harmony?
How do you add voices of accompaniment to a piece of music?
How do you "draw" a melody graphically and see it appear on the score so you can listen to it?
How do you "dress up" a melody with chords or how do you create a melody on existing chords?
If these questions already gave you some difficulties in the past, then this article and the following are designed to give you practical and usable solutions, based on the assistance provided by the composition tools of Pizzicato Professional 3.3.
Notice that you can use the demonstration version of Pizzicato 3.3 to follow and practice the examples that we will explain. Even if you do not have a Pizzicato license, you will find it advantageous for your training in music composition. You can download the demonstration version at the www.arpegemusic.com/demo1.htm page.
It is also a new occasion to use the music composition tools, for those who did not try them yet.
We will indeed start on the subject with a new viewpoint and very practical examples, that you can easily use in other contexts - for example your music compositions.
Music Composition Help...?
When you hear about music composition help, the first idea that you should get rid of is that the computer would compose for you.
Nothing is more false!
It is NOT the purpose of music composition help, at least in the Pizzicato context and our way of thinking about it.
Composing music is creating music so that you can communicate it.
To create is to imagine something from nothing. To communicate is to transmit a state of mind, an atmosphere, an idea, an emotion. The computer has nothing to do with these abilities, even if it can sometimes simulate them.
So, be reassured, you will always be the composer!
What is music composition?
Music is a very large set - practically infinity - of sound combinations.
Composing music is thus selecting the sound combinations which will convey your ideas, your state of mind, your emotions, among the infinity of the possible sound selections. Simple, isn't it? You just need to be able to choose! Let us examine the process of choosing in more details.
When you must select a destination for your holidays, there are many places and possible formulas. As you do not have time to examine all the possible cases, you use criteria to reduce the number of possible choices. You look at the cost (here we have a criterion which drastically limits the choices…), the country, the formula, the duration of the holidays. Several choices are left and you can examine them to finally select one of them.
Choosing thus consists of examining then deciding. It only becomes complicated when the quantity of possible choices becomes close to infinity. It is then impossible to examine them all. The desire to examine every possibility leads to perplexity and thus to indecision. The result is: no music composition!
It is then necessary to work out methods to examine areas of possibilities. Then to compartmentalize in smaller areas, while eliminating what seems not to agree with what you want to express and while letting yourself guided by what expresses your idea, your feelings.
Any method that effectively helps you to examine and then decide will be a useful method of music composition. The composition tools provided by a computer have the only purpose to help you examine. Regarding the act of deciding, there is only one person who can do it: you.
What does the pianist do when he tries to create a melody while playing on the piano? He examines (by listening) the sound result that the piano produces following the movements of his fingers. Then he decides which combination sounds best for what he wants to express.
Nobody would affirm in such a case that the piano has composed the melody, would you? The piano was used by the artist to examine a certain number of possibilities. It is the same for the computer: it helps you to examine and then allows you to decide.
Dividing music
Conventionally, music is divided in three distinct fields: harmony, melody and rhythm. It is the first division. One divides for better reigning. The interaction of the three areas is used to analyze or structure music. You can carry out selections in any one of the three divisions.
Harmony is the art of creating and sequencing simultaneous sets of notes which produce a desired effect.
Melody is the art of creating a sequence of expressive notes, each one with its sound pitch and duration.
Rhythm is the art of managing the durations and the sequences of sounds in relation to time, in order to create the desired atmosphere. The form of a piece (the way in which its various parts are arranged: introduction, verse, chorus, end…) are a particular aspect of rhythm because it is indeed related to the time structure of a piece of music.
The three fields are interdependent. A melody has necessarily a rhythm. Harmony suggests melodies. A melody can induce harmonies. But the principle is that you can examine music using these three viewpoints and this can help you to structure music. You can consider music as a melodic phrase that evolves on harmony and rhythm.
Harmony - Chords
The first purpose of harmony is to determine which notes can sound correctly when played together. The next one is to be able to sequence such sets of notes in order to produce an expressive effect and an evolution of the atmosphere so generated.
The groups of notes which sound well together are called chords. A succession of chords is called a chord progression or an harmonic progression.
Imagine a tool that displays a series of chords and lets you click on them to hear them and to sequence them in any order you want. It would be a method to examine chords and harmonic progressions.
While listening to chords and trying multiple combinations (one click per test is intuitive and easy!), you can decide which chords to use. You become able to create harmonic progressions intuitively.
Pizzicato Professional 3.3 includes a tool called the harmonic space which allows exactly that. Let us see how to use it to create a harmonic progression intuitively:
- Start Pizzicato 3.3. In the Windows menu, select the Conductor... item.
- In the top left tree, open respectively (by clicking on the small "+" in front of the icons): + Music Libraries ==> + Harmonic Spaces ==> + 2 - Thirds + seventh ==> + Common Degrees ==> + Several major scales
- Drag the icon entitled "3 major scales around C" to the main area in the right part of the window. You will have:
It is one of the harmonic spaces, which we will take for this example. In this harmonic space, we will find chords with thirds and sevenths intervals, belonging to the major scales around C Major, i.e. F Major, C Major and G Major.
Notice that for your future experimentations, you have at your disposal several hundreds of harmonic spaces of this kind, sorted in these folders. You will be able to explore them freely, by using the same process as will follow. They contain other scales, other chords, other modes of possible sequences. The combinations are numerous and everyone can find interesting combinations.
- Resize this blue rectangle using its right bottom corner so as to display:
- Click on first small "OK" button located to the right of the first "C" yellow chord. The window displays:
So the first chord of the progression is a "C" chord. In this harmonic space, just to the right of the "C" chord, Pizzicato displays the list of chords that can follow the "C" chord, so you can examine them.
But the name of the chords is not very expressive. The best would be to listen to them with a rhythmic pattern in order to hear the sound result. Here is how to do it:
- In the left top tree structure, close the folder entitled "Harmonic Spaces" and open the "Prepared Styles" one. Then open one of the styles by clicking on its "+" icon. We will select for example "Rock - 01". Then click on the "Rhythm" variation so as to select it in blue:
- Click on the play button (small yellow triangle) located in the upper part of the window. The style starts playing in continuous loop.
- Double-click in the middle of the "C" yellow chord. A small colored circle appears:
As of this moment, you can click in another colored rectangle so as to move this circle and directly hear the style played through the corresponding chord. You can then examine the various chords.
Make some tests. Notice that the clearest sound transition is obtained by clicking a new chord just before the beginning of a new measure (the rhythm which always comes back).
Here, the procedure becomes freer. The purpose is to examine by listening to several sequences and then select the one you like. Here is an example of this process.
Respectively click on "C", "F". Then "C" and "Bb", etc by using each time the "C" chord followed by each possibility suggested in the second column. If you find for example that you like the "A min" chord transition, click on the small "OK" button located on the right part of this chord (light blue) and the window will display:
The chord has been added to the harmonic progression. Pizzicato displays then a third column, with the chords that can be sequenced to "A min". While proceeding in the same way, test various sequences, starting from "A min" to the various suggested choices, or by using the full sequence "C", "A min", and the suggested choices.
Once you have chosen the chord, click on the small corresponding "OK" button and it will be added to the progression, for example "Bb". By using the same process, you get for instance the following progression:
