chord progressions

[themightylloyd]

i was wondering if anyone in here could help me with tension and such in chord progressions.

 

i read somewhere that tension rises and falls when you more clock-wise or counterclock-wise along the circle of fifths, respectively. but when assuming a specific key, it's not really possible to resolve further than the root, is it? (for example there would still some tension if you resolved from a G to an F if you didn't bring it back to C, correct?)

 

I've been trying to figure things out based on the degree of the chords too. I've figured out that a fifth chord builds a sort of happy tension, if that makes any sense. The fourth chord seems sort of neutral.

 

what happens when you're basing your progression on some other mode? then it just throws all the degrees off to me.

 

am i making any sense?

[thamiam]

That is a misleading statement, with a kernel of truth.

The Tonic, or root chord, will always be the most "at rest", or have the least amount of tension. As you move further from the root in either direction around the circle of fifths, the tension generally increases, but not entirely. For instance, as you said before, the Fifth (Dominant) of the scale (one move to the right) has a sort of Happy Tension. The tension is strong, and the chord wants to move to the Tonic. But the tritone of the fifth (directly across the Circle from the Dominant, or 7 moves to the right of the Tonic) has basically the same degree of tension.

I would say that it is more important to learn where each degree has a tendancy to resolve to, as opposed to blindly believing that the farther you move around the circle, the more tension you create.

Good instincts in questioning what you were told.

[StratKat]

This isnt a trick that i would ordinarily sugest to anyone but since it is about tension in music let me go ahead.

I heard a group a few weeks ago practicing a tune (original) and was floored by the awesum amount of tention they had going in a transition. After awhile i figured out what they were doing when i was able to watch them.

This certainly is not a standard practice but consider the desired result gained from a non standard trick.

They had two guitars , bass, and a keyboard player. During a transition the keyboard player RETUNED his piano/synth to a !/4 step lower then the A=440 standard. Then he forced a hard full chord in your face while the guitarist and the bassist played the transition riffs. This was in your face, raw, and almost obscene. But because thought was given to the riffs played and chords used it ALMOST worked. The grating against the music was extreme! And since it was repeated over and over you figured out it was supposed to work that way. SO in fact it DID work.

Another trick for tension is to have one player drone on a note while the others fall off in a progression that leaves him farther behind each 4 beats.