bigmaner123 Posted May 25, 2020 Share Posted May 25, 2020 (edited) HI so the title is the question, i wanted to ask this as im kinda confused on what to do sometimes with the harmony. Edited May 25, 2020 by Kudo Anastasia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monarcheon Posted May 25, 2020 Share Posted May 25, 2020 You'll find yourself finding both useful in different situations. Know how to do both. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigmaner123 Posted May 25, 2020 Author Share Posted May 25, 2020 Okay, thank you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean Szulc Posted May 25, 2020 Share Posted May 25, 2020 You can do both at the same time as well, construct the melody and the harmony together. This all takes trying and work, so either way you'll have to go back and forth until everything works properly. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngelCityOutlaw Posted May 25, 2020 Share Posted May 25, 2020 Adding chords to an existing melody will usually result in a stronger melody because it's not being affected by a pre-determined harmony. Start with a harmony first and you will tend to follow the chord tones already there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigmaner123 Posted May 25, 2020 Author Share Posted May 25, 2020 7 minutes ago, AngelCityOutlaw said: Adding chords to an existing melody will usually result in a stronger melody because it's not being affected by a pre-determined harmony. Start with a harmony first and you will tend to follow the chord tones already there. That's what i thought however when i do this i tend to get pretty lazy with the harmony, and it stays kinda bland. So the trade off is i get better melody but my harmony is weaker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddy Boston Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 On 5/25/2020 at 3:21 PM, Kudo Anastasia said: That's what i thought however when i do this i tend to get pretty lazy with the harmony, and it stays kinda bland. So the trade off is i get better melody but my harmony is weaker That's where a knowledge of chord substitutions comes in handy. Once you have the basic harmony you can spice it up by substituting more interesting chords. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ivan1791 Posted May 29, 2020 Share Posted May 29, 2020 On 5/25/2020 at 1:57 PM, Kudo Anastasia said: HI so the title is the question, i wanted to ask this as im kinda confused on what to do sometimes with the harmony. Most of the time I would give more importance to the melody. But you can do it the other way around and it is totally okay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sojar Voglar Posted June 1, 2020 Share Posted June 1, 2020 It is more creative to find melody first and later harmonize it, but the opposite may prove to be an interesting challenge. 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quinn Posted June 7, 2020 Share Posted June 7, 2020 I do either as needs be. As I still often work initially at a piano my hands sometimes fall to 'chords' as I explore a melodic fragment. It's probably as a result of my "lounge" playing where I'm trying to work out decent sounding chords to an improvised variant on a tune. It's whatever I feel at the time. I'm no theoretician so unless I want a specific effect I leave that alone. At times something contrapuntal emerges. Each case is different. Notation software is far too slow for my initial sketching which ends up vaguely like the x-axis of a time line, no bar lines, no tails to notes unless I have to make it obvious. One develops a shorthand.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterthePapercomPoser Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 On 5/25/2020 at 4:57 AM, Kudo Anastasia said: HI so the title is the question, i wanted to ask this as im kinda confused on what to do sometimes with the harmony. There is an article earlier in this forum about how Brahms approaches composition in which he explains how important it is to conceive of the melody, harmony and keep an interesting bass almost all at the same time. Sometimes the bass and the melody are enough to imply the harmony. Sometimes it might be better to come up with the melody and some contrapuntal lines at the same time and have those imply the harmony. Also sometimes the bass is a non-harmonic tone though. There's many different ways you could go about this and you should trust that the musical material will help you make some of these decisions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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