Originally Posted by tommyad
Alan, your understanding of chord progression and seat of your pants theory is what makes your compositions so good. This is another well mixed and arranged piece. You really are very good at this,Tom


Hi Tom,

Sorry for the slow reply - catching up on rest after a hectic week of medical appointments for Di.

Those are very nice comments, and I appreciate them very much.

As far as my understanding of chord progressions, they just kind of fall in place for me in many instances. And Band In A Box has helped a lot, too. I'll explain:

I'll pull up a band style that has a somewhat unusual (at least to me unusual) chord progression. I'll then keep the chord progression on the input sheet, but I'll then assign a different genre to it. And when it works (sounds decent to my ear as compatible) I'll study that progression and then compose 5 o6 6 "dummy songs" with it, sometimes altering the progression a bit when the need is obvious. I'll then study how the chords transition from one to another, looking for the commonalities that make them work together. Two examples of that are:

When going from C to Am, most often the composer will use a C - Em or E7 - Am progression (with the bass playing a B note for either of the E chords). What I found is that a terrific variation of that is C - Bm11 - E7- Am . The Bm11 and E7 split a 4-beat measure into 2 beats each. I find this to be very effective in Smooth Jazz and Pop Rock.

Another example is resolving a Dm9 back to a tonic C. It's common to use a Dm9-G7-C (or Cmaj7/Cmaj9). I often use this progression: Dm9 - C#7#9/G# - G13 - C or Cmaj7 or Cmaj9. The The C#7#9/G# and G13 split a 4 beat measure.

I learned that, either directly or indirectly, from Band In A Box, back in 2012 or thereabouts. Those alternate variations can change the whole complexion of a song.

Again, many thanks for the kind words!

My first version was BIAB 2011.

Hope that wasn't boring. But I wanted to let you know one way in which BIAB has helped me. There are multiple other examples, but I think those two are good, relatively simple, examples.

Best to you,

Alan

Last edited by Al-David; 03/17/24 12:15 AM.
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