Chords in CM - a brand new approach!

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 01 May 2006, 10:57

OK Vk, you need to go back and google some stuff on music theory.
keywords: scales, modes, triads,chords ,cricle of fifths

also the human ear is more sensitive to higher frequencies, so the highest frequency on the chord is probably what u will perceive to be the melody note, this is directly related to chord inversions...
For eg Cmajor = C+E+G, or u can pplay E+G+C etc
these r called inversions.. and voicings, so its not only the chord but also the voicing which matters.

but the main question u r trying to tackle ios a profound one.

given a melody, how do i decide the chord progression, and is it possible to come up with a melody given a chord progression?

Simple answer is yes.
more advanced answer would be, yes but coming up with a killer melody which would make a hit record is more difficult..

The people who know the knack to achieve this regularly are the top music composers.

to illustrate composing melodies for a chord sequence, or what we call riffs in the rock world, here is an example.
I am choosing a somewhat mellower compostion of mine, still work in progress...
so givena chord sequecne like this:
http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~jayen/jjjjj-mp3 ... 20Song.mp3

one possible melody could be:
http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~jayen/EIC/EIC-t ... melody.mp3
or it could be some thing totally different like
http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~jayen/EIC/EIC-t ... ke%202.mp3

So my answer to your question fo composing melodies for chord progressions would be, it depends on how talented the composer is..

but i guess more learned musicians with formal education maybe able to tell you a more systematic approach

mohan · Post by **mohan** » 01 May 2006, 12:06

Some of these simple keyboards (casio, yamaha, etc) have a function which makes the keyboard automatically play chords for you when you play the melody. How does that work?

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 01 May 2006, 12:25

no u have to play the chords , and based on the chords, and your root note, these accompaniment keybaords fire midi sequences for that chord.

Jay

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 01 May 2006, 13:40

Good job Jay. Good luck with that. I have listened to it once and I hear what you indicated. Both melodies flow and fit with the chords ( I almost said the background

) but I sort of prefer the second one for some reason.

BTW, this is not specifically directed at your compositions, but as a CM listener, I unconsciosly look for a melodic theme. It does not necessarily have to be a raga but if it is, it makes it easier. But even in non-raga based music, like Vocal Jazz, if the melody meanders without an emotional or musical objective, it starts to sound too random to me.

I am just stating this to add one more level of complexity to your answer on how to construct a melody for a chord. Sounding cool and good to the ear is a necessary criteria but I need more than that. And your job as a composer is tough because I can not really explain what that 'more' is but I will know it if I hear it

And if it is in a raga and done classically, it comes prepackaged with that 'stuff'.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 01 May 2006, 14:05

OK Vk, you need to go back and google some stuff on music theory.
keywords: scales, modes, triads,chords ,cricle of fifths

I am on it. Leant a little bit but still a long way to go. I did not realize that they do not notate the Key explicitly and it has to be analyzed and culled out from the notations....I am skipping that section for now

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 01 May 2006, 14:07

i do not know how to answer that, maybe there is no answer.. music after all is an acquired taste, what is music to one person can be cacophony and noise to the other.. to a non indian classical guy, gamakkas may totally sound comic and absurd, but to a devoted CM rasika... they may be the divine path to god. similarly what someone may consider as interesting, might be totally missed by another.. it all depends on what your ear has been trained to listen to..

So you know your question probably has no real answer.. because its answer has to factor in your musical tastes. You know what is bound to happen? As you venture out to find your answer, you will probably listen to various other genres of music,and yoru ears will spot new interesting things and assimilate them, and your definition of interesting will expand... and hence so would the answer u r looking for... probably more than the answer, its probably the quest for that answer thats more important..

^^^ ^^^ that was so cheesy and filmy.. neways , I think i am done with this discussion

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 01 May 2006, 14:16

I think i am done with this discussion

No, no, don't go away yet.

I see what you mean for the generic version of my question, the way you phrased it "how do I come up with a melody for a set of chords". That is the $64K question, I understand.

But my question 1 in the few posts above is very restrictive in scope and I asked that for a very utilitarian purpose in mind. You can even restrict your answer to that four bars of Oh Canada. ( Let me know if that is even silly to ask that question ).

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 01 May 2006, 15:31

well maybe i can say this..
for starters, just use chords whose notes are part of the raaga.
thats a safe subset, thats good initially and in some cases may be more than enough. I remember doing this for a hindusatani number in keerwani long time ago ...
i have the mp3 here.. but u cant here the chords that well as its bad quality audio from someones camcorder shot during the show.

http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~jayen/jjjjj-mp3/bole%20na.mp3

for if D = sa and raaga is keerwani, your chords can be , moving up..
Dm Edim Gm Gdim Bb in triads, u can contruct high voicing chords to just by following the raaga like Edim7 etc

here is a badly done jam by me in keerwani.. i kinda just randomply played and recorded it around the same time i did the show , i think it was 2002 or 2003...

http://vorlon.cwru.edu/~jayen/jjjjj-mp3/keerwani.mp3
anyways the above mp3 has keerwani chords more audible...

mohan: here is an example of accompaniment being triggered by my left hand chords.
but i am using something much more advanced that the auto accompniment keyboards, i am using a korg karma, with with karma framework generating the bass,and synth arpeggios in keerwani.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 02 May 2006, 05:18

Jay, that is very helpful and gives me the answers I was asking about.

What will be interesting is something like a piano solo: A slow and deliberate and explorative piece in a particular raga. No background beat. The whole score consists of chords and non-harmonic notes in say Keeravani. You already provided one way of coming up with chords for Keeravani. That process is similar to how one would generate the chords for any scale. Insert non-harmonic notes in between chorded notes to fill the gap and play Keeravani straight with all the raga swaroopam, lakshana etc. but more like an AlApana.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 02 May 2006, 05:39

see i am lost again. i dont not know what any of those sanskrit terms mean in the context of CM.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 02 May 2006, 05:54

raga swaroopam - Raga Identity
lakshana - Raga Grammar and associated things that go with a raga

Basically, doing the alAp like any other CM musician will do except with substituting chorded notes for some of notes in a typical sequence of swaras of the raga that bring out the identity of the raga, executed with the same gamakas for the non-chorded notes.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 02 May 2006, 07:31

I do it all the time over a carnatic melody. only i dont know whether i am breaking any raaga rules. i just go with the flow, and i do know that 20-30 percent of the times i do break rules and thigns do not sound right.

just follwo the keerwaani chord example i have given..

maybe another simple example would be for amrutavarshini/hamsaduani/HM yemen kidna raagas

lets say you raaga is composed of some notes from

C D E F# G A B C

hamsaduani, and amruta varshini would be subsets of the above,
and for yemen, the asceding notes would be B D E F# A B C,

but almost all of them will chords like

CM7 Em Em7 Emadd2,Bm.Bm7 , D

from the above chords Bm7 and D have the A note, so obviously those r yemen chords...

just build any melody on the above mentioned raagas, initiall have a simple melody, and try the following excercise, make a chord transition to a Chord whose root is the same as the melody note.. seems like a restrictive rule, but will work for starters...

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 07 May 2006, 00:28

This is as far away from CM to post here and still may be of a little relevance to some topics we talk about here. This is in the context of how hit records are made in western pop from the man who had done that many times over the past 40 years.

Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2 and click on LISTEN AGAIN on the right hand side (do this before Monday 8th May) and scroll down in the media player to 'The Record Producers - Arif Mardin'. This is an hour long show from BBC with Arif Mardin who I am familiar with as a highly respected music producer. He has produced many hit records with Bette Midler, Aretha Franklin, BeeGees, Norah Jones etc. He talks about his hit making career spanning multiple decades.

He talks about some technical aspects as well. At the minimum, it will be of interest to note the striking contrast between classical music making as we all understand here and pop music making.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 07 May 2006, 02:27

cool, he was a bigshot with atlantic records. will listen to it. should be interesting.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 07 May 2006, 02:32

Thanks VK, that was a wonderful interview.
Here is another very cool interview from one of my fav magazines SoS
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul04/a ... mardin.htm
It focuses a bit on his work with Norah Jones (Ravi Shankar's daughter)

kiransurya · Post by **kiransurya** » 07 May 2006, 02:55

VJ and VK
Thanks for those nice interviews....

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 07 May 2006, 05:51

Thanks VJ for the SoS article.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 12 May 2006, 12:46

check out guitar prasannas tribute to Jimi hendrix

http://www.guitarprasanna.com/EGL/
its very cool, I had forgotten to mention it here before.

Jayendran

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 13 May 2006, 14:48

while browsing prasanna's website, i stumbled upon a very cool piece of his writing very relevent to this thread (i ve been jamming nasika blues on my piano ever since

)

here are the links

http://www.guitarprasanna.com/Writings/ ... mprov.html
http://www.guitarprasanna.com/Writings/ ... blues.html

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 14 May 2006, 03:43

Thanks Jay. I follow Prasanna's works on and off. It has been a while now. I will check out the links you provided..

Talking of Hendrix, if any of you can dust off some Hendrix CDs.....

In these two songs

May This Be Love
Third stone from the sun

The guitar lines in the following spots sound Indian.

On the first one, it starts around 1:50 into the song and goes on for
a minute to the end of the piece.

On the second one, you can hear the same melodic line at the begining, in the middle among other distortions and towards the end with a 'low frequency' guitar..

If you can listen to it, let me know if it sounds Indian to you as well. It is very catchy and you can't miss it.

Vishnampettai Jayendran · Post by **Vishnampettai Jayendran** » 14 May 2006, 07:46

hmm not so indian.. he is just sliding to play notes to play the melody.

check out Jeff Beck- Nadia... thats definitely indian. he plays amazing.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 14 May 2006, 13:34

Jeff Beck's Nadia is definitely Indian melody and nicely done by the guitar legend. The original tune was by an UK Indian..

On the Hendrix stuff, when I first heard that many years back, the first thought that occurred to me was one of deja vu... I have heard this before..

mohan · Post by **mohan** » 25 May 2006, 08:22

http://www.chennaionline.com/music/Carn ... oncert.asp

may be interesting