Musicians Collaboration Studio

Writing Out Your Songs

LindyM · 17 · 26784
 

Offline Appleluza

  • Hero Member
  • *****
    • Posts: 784
    • Appleluza Music
I suspect that "charting" is more common for those genre's of music that tend to be created with session players, and maybe less common for typcial "band" music like rock and grunge and metal.  I know it is pretty common to use charts in Nashville where a lot of the music is done by pro session players who can knock out great tracks the first or second time through -- they all use a chart.  The same is true for my Berklee-trained jazz guitar teacher who can play anything, can name any chord you can play, and who can tell you which finger on which string is the 3rd, the 5th, the flat 7th, etc.  He had a real command of theory and the chart is just a short hand road map of where to go next.
Rob Talbert, Songwriter and Producer for Appleluza, a virtual multi-genre band.


Offline Digital Orchestration

  • Full Member
  • ***
    • Posts: 103
What if your song is just an instrumental? Not to mention the Chord chart since there are infinite illustrations. I do know it depends on the composer's notation, but say if a piece is uploaded without the melody.

Don't get it confused with a monophonic instrument playing the melody versus a polyphonic or chordal one. (flute vs. piano) because often times the melody is also played with the latter instruments.

Therefore, you can still tell where the progressions are going within a song. This is the case with a song I'm listening to.

As I mentioned before with the composer's indication of chords: Some implore the extended variety (9ths, 11ths, 13ths - alterations included); however, performance wise, they are seen and heard as sevenths (alterations included) with the root in the bass.

A13b9b11, for example.

This chord chord on the piano, would boil down to GmMaj7b5/A. The reasons for this is people play in the root + chord position; therefore, omitting two notes.

The above chord (A13b9b11) looks like this: A, C# E, G, Bb, Db, F#

Note, how the third and eleventh are the same note harmonically. Or if the chord were a b9, the eleventh would be a natural, and though that D is an octave higher, it eould still clash with the third of that chord if the octave is displaced.

The two omitted notes would be the third and fifth. Therefore:

A, C#, E, G, Bb, Db, F# --------------> A + G, Bb, Db, F#

11ths in performance see the third omitted (A + E, G, Bb, Db = Edim7/A) while ninths take care of themselves (octave root + seventh chord), but still may be noted as such. Em9 = (GMaj7/E) Yes, I understand the difference between extended and slash chords, but performance wise, the slash variety are very prevalent substituted for their extended versions.

So, again, it comes down to the performer understanding scales.

And let's not forget to mention inversions which encompass figured bass. Anything past a seventh (alterations included), still looks like a seventh. As this complicates things further, it'd be easier to omit the respective notes in 11ths and 13ths and look at them as inverted sevenths.

Em9 4th inversion = F#, G, B, D, (E); outside the parentheses, sits a GMaj7 (4/2) chord.

Em11 5th inversion = G, B, D, F#, A, (E). Here we have a GMaj9 and Bm7 outside the parentheses

Em13 sixth inversion = B, D, F#, A, C# (E, G) Here, we have GMaj11, Bm9 and DMaj7 chords respectively.

Given those examples, it'd be tremendously easier on the performer to see the latter chords unless the performer knows what the extended chords look like therefore adjusting accordingly.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2011, 08:08:00 PM by Digital Orchestration »
Many paths lead to the desired destination, but one path can lead to many desired destinations. Music is no different.

My pages:

http://www.reverbnation.com/digitalorchestration?kick=371103

http://www.facebook.com/rus.white

http://www.myspace.com/angelinashero


 

Powered by EzPortal