# For those struggling with writing interesting chord progressions



## ed buller (Mar 27, 2016)

Found this quite by chance. Oh how I love the internet. A very simple explanation on chromatic parsimonious voice leading and how to write cinematic harmony:



If you want to go further:



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and how it sounds when put into practice:





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tCRFYjQDcY






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## Steve Martin (Mar 27, 2016)

Hi Ed,

thanks for that link. That was a really great and simple explanation about parsimonious voice leading. Thanks for posting this video.

cheers,

Steve


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## Silence-is-Golden (Mar 27, 2016)

I looked up parsimonious in the dictionary and it says this:
unwilling to spend money or use resources; stingy or frugal.

What is it's meaning in the musical language?


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## ed buller (Mar 27, 2016)

Well frugal is apt. But basically it's about how closely chords can connect. So if you are playing a c Maj in route position. C E G. and you drop the C a semitone you get an E Min. That is "parsimonious voice leading" .

The reason why this is interesting is that The standard approach to teaching music is based on very old principles . And the connectivity of chords is usually held hostage by such considerations as "keys" and "the correct resolutions of dissonance" . This all comes from Harmony and Counterpoint being taught as separate disciplines .

We are now seeing the emergence of a new way of thinking . That really notes exist as part of tonal planes. And that a C chord ( maj or min ) is closely related to either an E (maj or min ) or an Ab (maj or min ). This relationship is based on the proximity of the notes . The above chords are all one note ( semitone) away from each other. So if you play the following chords. Cmaj , Cmin , Abmaj, Abmin , Emaj, Emin....Cmaj.....you will only have moved one note each time a semitone. The old way of thinking is that the Chords come from the scale. So C maj scale gives us C maj. E min and A min....Not C min Ab maj and E maj...and Yet...THEY are closer in terms of distance.

It is the contention of modern theorist that THIS is far stronger a bound , and potentially a greater source of manipulation than the older method of keys. Indeed using this analysis makes it mush easier to take apart and study music of the 19th and 20th centuries and learn what makes it tick.



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## Silence-is-Golden (Mar 27, 2016)

Allright, thank you Ed Buller.

That makes me a user of this approach unknowingly since this is one the things I enjoy about creating music.
It creates many possibilities for voice leading ( as is indicated in your post) and in my experience goes hand in hand with interesting modulations or change of keys.

Usually I hear a melody which gets supported / accompanied by a given chord progression based on this approach, or create melodies as the piece progresses based upon what is written so far, and again supported by chords that in many ways support or are derivative from the melody. This includes the options for chords that create tension with the melody.

I know that voice leading is not neccessarily the same as a melody but in my creational principles they are very similar. Voice leading sounds like a melody to me and can be used as a 'counterpoint' form with or apart from the melody. This is what makes multi layered music that creates more depth in especially orchestral oriented music.

I don't know if I will ever fully integrate the classical theories and approaches eventhough they do contain useful views regarding harmonies ( not doubling fifths, octaves and or paralel progressions, and so on) but as you say, they have become very rule based, and to me can restrict creative flow.

Several classically well known compositions and by general views are highly regarded are in my world too mathematical or intellectually tainted, and thus move away from what I consider to be the essence of music.

This common experience shared by several 'composers' or musicians to me are evidence of 'something other' that could be guiding a composer. If I remember correctly f.e. Beethoven and Debussy have had moments in their life where they could hear the full composition before they put it on paper. Also John Lennon said something similar when he could ' pick the songs out of the air ( not an accurate quote) since it was already there. Vangelis also indicates that he wants to be tuned into something else (nature or the 'music of the spheres).

Anyway, an interesting approach this parsimonious idea, and see if this vid will broaden my view and create more ways to create music.

So much appreciation that you started this thread.


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## afterlight82 (Mar 27, 2016)

Actually, that's not _quite_ right.

Harmony developed pretty linearly in the Western tradition from either (depending on your perspective) the ancient Greeks or the mediaeval theorists (there was a bit of a gap where people were too busy pillaging and having their teeth fall out in the dark ages, not doing a huge amount of writing, and we don't really know what happened...).

It's only a little later in the picture that the Western concept of tonal "harmony" evolved, because _everything_ up to then was based on the intersection of lines, (and it's not until Rameau that you get the word harmony even used). And in fact, proximity was everything in the first place - subdivided into tetrachords and hexachords from the "gamut" (literally, where the word comes from) - which is based entirely on half and whole steps. It's not an accident that this was predominantly because it's easier to sing.

The tonal "planes" are more often an acknowledgement of either polytonality or pandiatonicism, or similar, into a 12-tone system. It's comparatively recent (early-mid 18th century) that the idea of naming chords came about, but the voice leading aspect of it really never went away, and in fact, the theoretical idea (as opposed to an inherent "rule" just understood by all) is not modern at all (in the sense of 20th or even 19th century) but it's really an early 18th Century idea - Rameau wrote "On ne peut passer d'une notte à une autre que par celle qui en est la plus voisine_" - _something like_ "_you can't go from one note to another except by whichever is the closest neighbor"_ - _and he wasn't expressing something new, that was basically an unwritten (and I believe, sometimes actually written, even before 1700) "rule". That's not to say a wider jump isn't permissible, but that they knew voice leading was crucially important.

The widening of the _tonal system_ was new, really from Wagner onwards, but the method itself wasn't. The I iv V vi way of doing things is basically late 18th, early 19th century and onwards, but it was more a "look what good voice leading produces" kind of realization.



ed buller said:


> Well frugal is apt. But basically it's about how closely chords can connect. So if you are playing a c Maj in route position. C E G. and you drop the C a semitone you get an E Min. That is "parsimonious voice leading" .
> 
> The reason why this is interesting is that The standard approach to teaching music is based on very old principles . And the connectivity of chords is usually held hostage by such considerations as "keys" and "the correct resolutions of dissonance" . This all comes from Harmony and Counterpoint being taught as separate disciplines .
> 
> ...


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## afterlight82 (Mar 27, 2016)

That said, of course, if you were referring to Neo-Riemannian analysis, then yeah, obviously Rameau had no idea about that and there are people doing Fourier analyses of the tonality of Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Schumann and others in relation to complex mathematics, things which make most music theory look like pre-school. I started to read a paper online the other day, which was completely about music theory - a subject I think we would all think ourselves reasonably conversant with - didn't understand _a word_. Not a word.

It's an interesting question given such composers - and in fact most of us - aren't intentionally constructing music based on such ideas, but that one can explain something that a composer comes up with, basically out of thin air, with complex mathematics just goes to show for me how we are fascinating creatures who order things subconsciously in ways more complex than we understand.


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## Resoded (Mar 28, 2016)

Thanks for posting this.


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## Rodney Money (Mar 28, 2016)

Music Theory II in college.


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