02-20-2017, 03:07 AM
(02-19-2017, 07:27 PM)Mattias Westlund Wrote:(02-19-2017, 03:58 AM)Nayrb Wrote: Some of the best advice I ever got was to come up with a melody first and the chords after that. This was years ago and I still find it extremely useful. My knowledge of chord theory is still pretty limited (I couldn't do the formulaic thing if you asked me to) but back when I was given this advice I was having trouble because I was using very stilted chord progressions (on the guitar, specifically; on the keyboard I was all about the inversions, but it didn't seem to translate back then, for some reason) and my melodies were very limited because of that. Inverting that approach also helped me expand other things as well, such as my rhythmic sense, and allowed me to start writing more interesting, linear parts overall.
You would be surprised how many of my compositions started out as basic duophonic things with just bass notes and a melody on top.
I very rarely think about chords initially, as chords and harmony are very amorphous things to me. Chords will change constantly throughout a composition, often going in unexpected places and moving between keys. So I never really think about chords except for the basic stuff -- like is this going to be in a major or minor key, or do I want a particular modulation here or there? -- as this is usually a waste of time. I like to keep new ideas as chord progression-free as possible. If I decide on a chord progression early on, this will stick in my head and prevent me from being truly creative with chords and modulations. There's nothing I love more than having a thematic melody show up with a totally different chord progression underneath it, making it sound both familiar and completely new at the same time.
I'd like to have a better understanding of chords and harmony, and hopefully with practice I'll achieve that. But at least having that melody and strong bass foundation (which I suppose is technically a chord progression, right?) allows me to experiment with all sorts of other things because I'm able to focus on what is memorable in the track and augment it, thus helping me with my tendency to over-arrange at times.