Chord Arpeggios

Chord Arpeggios Arpeggios or respective broken chords can be a great tool for accompaniment patterns or sources for melodic gestures. On accompanying figures they help to establish a sense of harmony but also keep a steady rhythm going. On melodies they help to...

Alternative Bass Notes of a Chord

Alternative Bass Notes of a Chord Altering the bass note of a chord to a note different than the root note can create quite new harmonic impressions than the original chord. If you change the bass note to a different chord tone like the third or fifth of the chord,...

Major 7th Chords in Film Scoring

Major 7th Chords in Film Scoring Major7 chords (e.g. Cmaj7) are a bit tricky to handle and should be written with care. They are usually used as tonic chords, however function very nicely on the subdominant position as well. The actually very dissonant major7 in this...

Alternative Chord Structures

Alternative Chord Structures The structure of having a chord consisting of root, third, fifth etc. is nothing that is written in stone. Alternative chord structures may have a very interesting and useful sound and still sound like a fully working chord. A nice field...

9-1 Resolutions

9-1 Resolutions In practically any chord type and progression you can add very filmic sounding inner voices by relying on the 9-1 resolution. When you for example use a C major chord it will give you a colourful inner voice when some instrument (apart from the bass of...