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harmonizing your melodies....


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Posted

Hey there.....bear with for moment please,

 

From time to time my students actually ask a good question, so i thought i'd share; How do i harmonize to create chord/melodies?

 

I thought about this and came up with this answer..

 

We'll use C major/a minor 0 accidentals, easier to decifer,

 

I ii iii IV V vi vii

c d e f g a b root

e f g a b c d 3rd

g a b c d e f 5th

 

b c d e f g a 7th

 

 

Now, take a simple melody, we'll use C d F e , play slow in 3/4 (you have to change chords, no shreddin'......yet)

 

Use the chord chart to find location of melody as relates to interval of chord

 

 

Harmonize from Root position: Cmaj, d min, Fmaj, emin, or I,ii,IV,iii

 

from 3rd, we get compl diff. feel: a min, b dim, d min, C maj. or vi,vii*,ii,I

 

from 5th : Fmaj, Gmaj, b dim, a min, or IV,V,vii*,vi

 

from 7th dmin7, emin7, Gdom7, Fmaj7, or iim7,iiim7,V7,IVmaj7

 

 

if you listen you can still here your melody rolling through the progression you decide upon, but remember, all chords are mix and match, so, you can harmonize from any part of the chord at any timecreating an endless variety of flavor from the same simple melody.....Unfortunately, writing an interesting melody is not as easy as harmonizing it...::)

 

 

If this helps even one of you guys it was completely worth typing it out(i'm really bad at this)

 

Be Well.

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Posted

... is take a diatonic melody, say in C major and try to harmonize it with non diatonic chords.... It's a cool exercise I devised after reading an interview with Scott Henderson when I was like 15-16.... Basically, you take this diatonic melody and say the first note of the melody is a C.... You could harmonize it with tertian harmony saying either C is the root of a C chord of any type (Cmajor, Cm, C7, C7#5, etc.) or it's a major third of an Ab major of some type... Abmaj7, Abmaj7#5, etc., or it's the fifth of some type of F chord... Fmaj7, Fm, F7#11, etc. This is all with the C being a functional part of the Lower Structure Triad.... Then you can get even crazier and try to harmonize the C note with every possible chromatic root and fill in the notes between the root and melody note to create a chord quality that works...

For instance, if I took this C melody note and took roots chromatically ascending from C, I COULD POSSIBLY get the following progression (with the C note on top of all voicings):

 

Cm7 - Dbmaj7 - D7 - Eb13b9 - Em7#5 - Fm6 - F#7#11 - G7sus.4 - Abmaj7 - Am7b5 - Bbmaj9 - B7b9 - Cm7.

 

Notice that in each of these chords, C serves a purpose in the fundamental structure of the chord.... whether part of the lower structure triad (root, third, fifth) or any extensions (tensions - 9,11,#11,b13,13) or alterations (b9, #9, b5, #5)

 

Then you do this for EVERY meody note in your melody and you can of course go by root motion types (chromatic, cycle of fourths/fifths, or random root motion) to create a COMPLETELY random sounding progression that still has an inner logic that will make your harmonizations/reharmonizations really tasty!!!!

 

Also, as a guitarist, that was an exercise I used to do... taking a melody note in an existing song and first playing the given harmony, then systematically moving the root down or up chromatically while keeping the same melody note.... Then you fill in the rest with whatever available notes you may have to make the chord make sense from a functional perspective....

 

Anyway, if you guys have any questions about any of this, feel free to hit me up on here or my myspace:

 

www.myspace.com/dannyhayounakaprofessorparkinson

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Posted

i like to take a phrase with a certain rhythm, and within the sound of the line, come up with a bunch of melodies that work and record them all. it gives a pretty cool vocal effect. it can break all kinds of parallelism rules, but it's more of an effect than a bunch of distinct voices.

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Posted

Yes. thats what im talkin bout.....although i tried to dumb it down to its most basic idea. But, with this in mind the possibilities for cool sounding chord harmonies can be extraordinarilly huge.

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