Chapter 10
Chapter 10: Composing with Chords ...........................................................................
In This Chapter
Getting moody with chords
Combining chords
Making progress with chord progressions
Ending up with cadences
Getting harmony from melody
Considering chord changes
Exercising your chord harmonization
O
ne major point you should have gotten from your experience with
music theory is that the key signature of a piece of Western tonal music
governs the main notes within that piece. When you want to escape the key
signature within that piece of music, you have to use accidentals (sharps,
flats, and naturals) to indicate notes outside the key.You can have several octaves’ worth of notes on an instrument, but only the
notes allowed by the key signature can be used without accidentals in that
piece of music. The scale of the piece governs the music’s tonality — which
means breaking free from the original key is a good way to add spice.Therefore, if you have a song written in C major, the main eight notes that will
appear in the song are C natural, D natural, E natural, F natural, G natural, A
natural, and B natural. If your song is written in A major, the only notes
appearing in that song will be A natural, B natural, C sharp, D natural, E nat-
ural, F sharp, and G sharp. In either of these keys, the chords are also made
of some combination of the seven notes in each key.