Minor Ninths

Minor Ninths The minor ninth is considered the “last dissonant interval”, even more than a minor second. Therefore it should be handled with care in any chord voicing (including minor ninths + octave(s)). The inherent dissonance in this interval will often...

Chord Voicings Without Fifth

Chord Voicings Without Fifth When constructing chords, try the difference of leaving out the perfect fifth of the chord and having it in. Due to the fact that the fifth will be quite a strong overtone of the root (=usually the bass note) anyway, it will be present in...

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...

Shared Chord Tones

Shared Chord Tones A very commonly used concept in film music to write chord progressions is the concept of shared chord tones. Basically you could treat every chord as a new tonic and find the next chord by moving to a chord that shares at least one chord tone with...