Chord progressions are hidden melodies (Blocking Technique)

Harmony impacts everything we do as composers. Today we'll look at a new way to think about harmony, and how to extract a melody from a chord progression.

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[Androsynth]

I have no real formal music training, but I write music on grooveboxes, daws etc.

This video and the chord one are probably the most useful 20minutes of music theory I have listened to on Youtube. Very well explained, and enormously useful. Thanks.

[MrKrisstain]

”Or learn to play it, if you really hate yourself” 😂

[FerdBerphle]

I love the way you think through these musical thoughts. I have been exposed to music all through my life. My sister was a classically trained vocalist who attended University of Cincinnati’s Conservatory and finished at Ohio State. I would travel to Cincinnati with her in the summer and take percussion lessons with one of the guys in the symphony. These days I spend time with my DAW “playing” with music as a hobby. Your ideas are always so interesting and challenge me to think differently. Thank you for sharing these cognitively rich sessions with us. It’s always good.

[ShreddingDragon]

I think it speaks volumes about your skill and insight as a composer and music educator that, whenever I watch a video like this from you, I feel like I should or could have realized it myself way earlier already – like, it's so simple and useful, and there's nothing gimmicky about it, yet I didn't realize it earlier myself. Ingenious! It's like the way you describe a musical phenomenon makes me auto-understand it. Thank you.

[bagfacedog]

Thank you for what you're doing on this channel. Quickly becoming my favorite stop. I love how you manage to translate your in-depth knowledge into terms a simpleton, like me, can understand (mostly). Even more, I enjoy your dry whit. A remarkable combination.

[UtopiaFade]

"Non Functional Harmony" is an amazing liberation and gift. Thank you for this..."it makes my eyebrows go..."!! 💕🤣💥

[timekeeperstudios]

Excellent post. I'm going to try some of these chord ideas, or some similar variations. While I try to mix up my chord progressions, they do tend to become quite similar and they get a little mundane over time. Thanks for these very helpful tips!

[nickrouse]

When you mentioned the hands playing independent notes, my guitar player brain took a minute to think about that. Lol

[bricelory]

This feels nice and meaty! Thank you for this great video! Really good stuff!

[AndrewColyerMusic]

FANTASTIC!! Thank you so much for this!! 😀

[neilingle]

Great video as usual, and like others, I particularly enjoyed the moment when you extracted your melody from the block chord progression (which itself to me was very interesting in its ''strangeness'' even though not jarring). Often I get a melody and try to put chords around it, or try to put a melody on top of all the chord notes - now I'm going to try extract the melody and transform chord into melody notes! Will add that to my toolbox...

[winknotes]

Very interesting and I appreciate the way you explain these concepts. I write this way fairly often where I'll extract a melody from a 'chord progression' I'm hearing. Of course it can go the other way too where a melody will inform a chord progression or maybe better said a particular voice leading. Great stuff and thanks for sharing.

[davidsanfeliumarco]

Amazing video as always!!! An studio tour would be great!

[tonyrapa-tonyrapa]

Really interesting. I never thought about splitting up the chords into left hand base chords, right hand melody. I shall now go away and experiment. Thank you.

[dmreturns]

nice. Thanks for these videos. They are always good to hear and think about.

[kkeytone]

Speaking of your composition teacher, I’ve recently performed “Lou’s” Beatles arrangements. His rules for harmonic freshness are preset in those as well. I was honestly blown away with them when reading through them for the first time. Absolutely incredible. I don’t even like the Beatles tbh

[MegaKillercookie]

loved this video
thank you for being one of the best music theory teachers on youtube!

[BRIGGS]

thanks x 1000 to you, lately, my synth pads sound amazing!

[LouisSerieusement]

This was an awesome video thank you so much

[DEADLINETV]

About ten years ago, when I got into synths and all, I learned how to make efficient chord changes, by preferably moving but one finger. That ultimately got me stuck in writing everything like Cm -> Ab. I will try this technique out to see if I can get away from my pattern. I guess it also kinda really depends on what kind of music you make tho. I love making Synthwave, which is basically pop. But yes, this could bring me new colors! I hope they're neon!