I have just realized a songwriting problem that I've never had. My new song is in the Key of E and in the opening chord verse I sing an E NOTE, but it is against a G#m chord. Someone told me that it clashes and I realized the notes in the G#m are G#m, B and D#. So the E I am singing is clashing with one of the notes in the chord. I've tried playing a different chords there and it doesn't sound great. I've experimented with playing a g#m with NO 5th and that seems to sound okay, however I don't think Band In A box with allow me to do that (I'm using realtracks). Any thoughts on what I can do here? I'm also using EZKEYS and it gives the option to take out notes from the chord (as it's midi based). the 2nd verse of the song the piano comes in as well.
Never noticed this problem before.
The problem comes in on the words PATH and GROWN here and then in the same part of the song in the 2nd verse:


https://soundcloud.com/happyrondrums/even-the-hardest-heart

Any thoughts appreciated!

first I assume you're not singing an E chord.... maybe just the E note? Very few people can sing two notes together let alone 3. (Joke)

I'm not a big theory guy but .... when you sing an E against the G#m chord, you actually end up with the E7 major chord. I don't see how that would be a clash.

I listened to the first part of the song and hear what you are hearing. It could be that your voice is not exactly on pitch. I played the "find your path" notes on the piano while playing the G#m and it works perfectly. However, yep... it does sound uncomfortable in the song with you singing it. So.... maybe try dropping the Path note to D# and see if that works. That one note is not going to alter the melody in any significant way. In fact, it will improve the melody because it resolves the melody. Why it sounds uncomfortable is simply because it's not resolved and we expect resolution in predictable places in our music. Change the note and see if that doesn't work and sound better.

What's also interesting to note is that if you play the melody BELOW the chord on the keys, it sounds good. HOWEVER, if you reverse that and play the chord lower and the melody higher above it.... yep it sounds uncomfortable. The same exact notes.

Sometimes you just have to find a different melody if things are not working like you planned.

Hi Ron,

I write this just in case it's useful food-for-though kind of information...

I just had a listen and I really like the tension created by the maj7 sound.

To my ears, "Path" sounds better than "Grown". While it's possible that this could be due to "Path" hitting the E more accurately, it's also possible that the resolving down of the melody note for "Path" works better. The melody note for "Grown" rises and sounds a little uncertain.

While a maj7 (in this case D#) can resolve comfortably up a half-step (in this case E), it sometimes sounds more comfortable resolving down a half-step or a full step.

Regards,
Noel

P.S. I really like this song! You've done a great job

Yes, the chord could be EMaj7. It also could be G#m#5 so you might want to try that chord as maybe you wont get a D# and E clash. In MIDI that would be an easy fix but in RT you have to hope you can get a different inversion so there wouldn't be a clash.

Noel96> thanks for the kind words on the song!

Does anyone know if Realtracks can create all the chords in the CHORD LIST in the reference of band in a box or is there are more limited subset. I'm gonna try G#m#5 and others, as I currently like the sound of the E note

As you want to keep the E note then try using just an E chord. The only note that you would be missing is the D# and that is the note that will clash with the E.

Thanks for all your help, I tried having Band In A Box play a G#m#5 instead of a G#m so that I would be singing an E against an E rather than Eb. To my surprise realtracks was able to play that "weird" of a chord, and I changed EZKEYS where simply didn't play the Eb on the harp.

I think this is "done' but would love any feedback. I'm going to send it in a few days to 91x one of the biggest radio stations in san Diego which often plays my songs on their local music sunday

https://soundcloud.com/happyron10/even-the-hardest-heart

Thanks for your feedback again!

PS BAND IN A BOX ROCKS SOCKS!