Harmony Tip 2

I’ve heard songwriters say that sometimes they feel stuck in one or a few chord progressions and would like to try different harmonic paths. Or as I like to say, to dress their melodies with different kinds of clothes. The blog post from March 2nd presents Tip I, and I recommend that you read that one, if you haven’t already.

By the way, the example posted on Tip I as well as this method of choosing chords are based on the harmony method of the great pianist, arranger, composer Luizinho Eça, who was my teacher in Brazil.

I remember my first lesson with Luizinho. I was already studying classical piano for about eight years. I brought a tune I wrote, and one of the chords seemed especially unusual to him. The voicing of it. He asked why I chose that chord in that inversion. I said that’s the sound I hear in my head. And that’s what this method helps you do. Choose chords more by emotion than theory, the emotion that chord should impart on the melody – although knowing theory helps. Maybe you have studied harmony a lot and can’t get away from the thinking of what should be the harmonically correct chord.

I love this method because is so intuitive. However one does need to know how chords are structured. A basic way to figure out which chord you are playing, the name of a chord, is to stack the notes in thirds. I’m using the piano to do this – there is a reason why they say we have the whole orquestra on the piano!

Example: In the first two chords the E is the tonic. They are both E7 chords, even though in the first chord the D is in the bass position.