A NEW way to write Chord Progressions 

Oh here's that eBook if you wanna get horizontal: bit.ly/FREEcompositionguide

This is super legit. Sometimes I just write by following the voice leading of each part where it feels like it wants to go, and "discovering" the harmony that way.

I was really hoping for something innovative like a blockchain AI creatine infused chord method but I was nonetheless inspired by this video. Good work.

in which JNJ nonchalantly establishes that he would make an incredibly accomplished Melodic Techno, Ambient House, or Goa Trance producer...

I'm very new to song composition and I just recently finished my first ambient track. I barely know my way around a physical keyboard and I can play a little guitar. I've found the visual aspect of my DAW to be extremely helpful in writing music, as someone who isn't an expert instrument player. I started to notice that specific shapes of melodies (in the piano roll) were giving me the sound I was looking for...almost to the point where I was kind of painting a picture -- which had a mostly horizontal sweep and direction.

Four voices? Inversions? Heresy, in metal we only need two. Power chords go brrr. PS: The ending track indeed slaps.

Great video! I am a fan of drastic chord changes to keep it interesting. I often add 4th/7th/11th/13th notes to my chords, delete the root or just add the super tonic and make the chord „diffuse“. Let the bass anker the „feeling“ of the progression. Then it is nice to change the root of the bass while keeping the same chord progression which adds tension.

NO ! I will continue coming up with chord progressions! I live my life as I want, you can't decide for me! Leave me aloooooooooooooooooone !!!

Yup. Dance version slaps like all hell. Fantastic groove with lots of lovely intricate detail. Loved it. This is inspiring.

Wonderfully instructive. Thank you, Jameson Nathan Jones.

I remember my first inversions, there was no internet and I didn't know a lot of music theory, I couldn't even remember what musicians tried to teach me, so I did all by myself. It was like playing triads and I wanted the notes closer together, so I started lowering notes. Before I even knew it I was adding bass notes and then I understood what everyone was trying to teach me. It's been a long time I took the time to find something interesting and will dig into these chord progressions, love not so familiar sound of these progressions.

A fantastic and engaging illustration of voice leading. Well done!

Great video...Now I realise, I really need to learn how to write choral music. I feel like it would benefit me a great deal to study this. Thanks to the choral video you showed, I stumbled upon the 'Tenebrae Choir' channel here on YT, and I'm just blown away by how incredible their performances are and really got me thinking about how to bring this style into ambient.

Fantastic sounds!!!

I have a degree in classical composition. The literal first rule of voice leading is aside from parallel fifths (which are fine for pop & contemporary anyway) is that notes should resolve to the nearest member of the new chord and notes should only be added to add 6/7/9 notes. But I guess it’s 2023 and I’m old now. Good chat everyone.

The shade thrown in this video 🎉 love your stuff!

Really nice concept, thank you! Those choir and string quartet examples helped a lot.

7:40 has to be the coolest chord progression ever - oh how happy to see you toss the auto-chord methods where they belong. that is killing the creative potential of any producer/player behind a keyboard...thank you so much. SO inspired to start using my kicks to alter my pads...and...get a warm lightbulb to create with !

JNJ: "...the way that choirs work..." Me, a long time chamber choir member, hearing the music in the background: "Wait, that's Bogoroditse Devo." I've only found your channel recently, but I'm loving it. Thank you!

You're my new favorite content creator. Been loving your videos, your humor is very natural and hilarious. Keep it up!

I found you yesterday and I want to say, I love you and your videos. They are so helpful and informative and perfect for where I’m at, thanks for being a great teacher!! :)

Loved this. Thank you very much!

Fantastico, the final song is great, and i hear the richness of the chord-melody variations. Great

very cool and nice and all the good stuff. Great musician

Yes - that certainly jigged! Very nice work, indeed.

I came back here, prompted by the end of your more recent video on the Arpeggiator, having forgotten that you'd contextualised this exceptionally well here. Both of these now make inspirational waves for me. I may even set to work😱

Holy ssshhh... , that's a very cool way to teach some chords, from start to finish! awesome man thanks a lot for doing this

Thanks again for the insight

This is excellent!

a very good lesson, thank you!

this actually is really helpful! I always made chords and then hoped and prayed that they'd work well together, but this is a far more consistent means of confirming that the chords will work together. Thanks!

You have inspired me. Thank you 🙏

I've been writing canons with "normal" instruments playing them- your video is inspiring me to consider writing canons for synths and other non-traditional instruments

Great content! Love the mix of Theory, Synths & Humor 👍

Reading the section in the beginning of your ebook about voice leading rules brought me to an understanding of it that years of internet traversal could not. I love how in the example in the book (Chapter III) Bach is creating such a subtle bit of contrast by adding that 4th part which was almost like "introed" by the doubling. Looking at harmony with new eyes today because of you. Thanks. :D

The Ravel in F is one of my favorites.

Oof! So lovely. The American Kiasmos. Lookin' forward to your full-length techno record that I am sure you are working on. Because it would be killer. For real.

Damn, i have a fairly good grasp of theory and this was extremely helpful and useful to me. Subscribing and downloading your book now!

This content isn’t available anywhere else….. fantastic!

So good!

Another great technique as seen in the synth quartet example is, don’t have all the notes of the chord start and stop at the same time. It helps breath dynamics into the song and doesn’t feel amateurish like a series of whole note triads does.

Thank you, this really helped 😊

Good old fashioned counterpoint. Love it! 👍

That synth quartet reminded me a lot of some organ pieces Bach wrote that my harmony teacher had us study, great work! I don't think I was the intented target of this video, already knew all that, but still loved it and will share for sure ❤

Nice one! (Again) Thx! Also: can’t wait for next week’s topic!

Great video!

driving into the sunrise kind of vibe. cool.

This slaps. You just earned a subscriber :)

Really like this content a thinking mans approach to composition/theory/production. You and Venus theory along with Benn Jordan rule the roost bravo excellent work.

awesome stuff, earned my sub

Love the synth Quartet. I grew up playing in sax quartet. This has actually helped me to arrange music on my 4 voice synth ms2000

I am a guitar player and ive watched videos about chord progression changes in things like jazz. I have been thinking about chord progression like telling a story, then something unexpected happens, it gets resolved, etc... Well this is something else entirely and im glad you mentioned the monk chanting chorus. It can create some other worldly sounds, where it feels familiar, like down is down and up is up, but everything else about this world is like anything youve heard before.... Very cool to think about. I think tone is ultimately what attracts us to music and it can be presented in many ways such as simple effects. But i feel that this way of using chord progression also provides tonal structures like syllables in a word or inflection of certain syllables. Interesting to think about indeed!

Mind blowing

very useful tips, especially for a beginner like me who feels kinda lost but knows there is no way to give up :D

Great!

I, too, wondered exactly what you meant when I came to that section of your book

Great, as always. I recently tried to learn four part harmony, got stuck, and just start playing independent lines. According to an analyzer I used a lot of dominant chords.

Props for the VOCES8 video for the choir example :)

Gonna go make myself use and borrow these techniques thank you 1000 times

This just changed my life

Thanks!

I just wanted to confirm that, yes, that does slap. Great video (and songs)!

Can't wait for your release of more up tempo bangers

This takes me back when I was just a beginner on piano and it took me 2 months to get my first Bach piece down 😢 the words "Herliebster Jesu was hast du veebochen" are burned into my mind forever

Best music channel

I really love chord progression like that, deadmau5 vibe

I'm no keyboard player. Most of the time I play one note and let the DAW (Reaper in my case) create chords in key, or use Scaler 2 or suchlike (Chord Gun in Reaper sometimes). Occasionally I go into pianoroll and move notes about to change inversions, but not a lot. I like to do it more so when creating parts for an orchestral VST like BBCSO by Spitfire or Synchron Elite Strings by VSL. You've reopened my eyes. I thank you.

Excellent video! How about a lesson on tonal counterpoint as applied to ambient style composition (and for some extra fun) as well as "EDM" music as you've done in this video? Keep up the excellent composing (I've purchased some of your works already).

COULD YOU PLEASE RELEASE THIS TRACK FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Thank God I came with the idea to search for "music composition" instead of "music production" and found your channel. Contrary to most videos on the topic, your are actually inspiring and they don't make me feel like doing math homework.

I spend too much time watching damn gear videos when this is what I should be watching. I have everything I need already to make great music - except the actual musical skills at this level! Thanks, this is super helpful.

That P12 got me drooling

Dang that's crazy. The EDM thing you put together solved my annoyance with that style of music. Same with most electronic instrumental hip-hop. It almost never has any musical development besides dynamic changes. I play jazz music and so much of how I write is thinking of how to blend the harmony I want with fluid melodic lines. I've gotta find a way to do this with a more melodically minded approach like this so I've been studying Ravel and Chopin for the first time in my life. Wish me luck haha. I need help hahaha.

'yeah but can it slap' - instant sub :D answering the question on everyone's minds!!

True method with coming up with chords. Ear train. That's the best method not to many people will tell you about but they will give you "quick methods" Ear training covers all of that up

I definitely need to get my keyboard skills up

So tasteful Jameson. There is a reason, I buy all of your stuf. (Shut up take my money). The moment I discovered you, I felt you're this harmony slash melody wizard who loves rhythmic suggestions and actually hates the sound of clean drums. I'll soon be spending more time on music theory. It's a ton of work for a hobbyist cycling between sound design, technical setups, music style analysis, music theory, soft and hardware device knowledge .. I wonder when it's time to make music : ))))) Great vid!

I understood like nothing said in this video, but maybe I should try to concetrate on thing at the time. And it is good to test these advanced video tips every now and then and some beautiful day it will click!

This is why I love my Matriarch. Is does a wall of insane analog goodness as well as a light magical arp.

Actually THIS is the only way to write music. It has the least friction for documenting what you actually hear in you and the final result that gets into your ears... Excellent video!😉

Hey, thanks for the lessons, big Trance music fan and used to Dj during the 90s, early 00s was a special time for Trance music. I do like the drum bass used from the...I'm assuming TR-909/808 keyboard Synth Work flow? Your song is gd and I can see you love your stuff, best way to be, get stuck in. I was going to enrol in a music course back in 2002 but my life took a turn and it never happened, I had an interview and got shown around the campus, the cubase installed on the computers, the Analogue and Digital workflows in the studios looked fantastic, and they had Technics 1210s as well to use which I was very familar with from the clubs, it looked like paradise to me, but as I said unfortunately it wasn't to be. Nowadays I've just downloaded a DAW and trying to put together some ambient background music, which is fun and videos like this help a lot. Thanks a lot, all the best for the future. 👍

Great

This is great. Those of us with SATB experience know this instinctively but these basics of theory and arrangement should be discussed more.

great examples! i do feel like this could be summed up by saying "mind your voice leading"

great videos and i enjoy your subtle humor :) so basically what you're talking about here is voice leading ?

Tak!

I like to write a lead over my chord progressions either 4 or 8 bars in length starting on the fifth or 3rd of the scale. I will then will add one or two long legato notes either the root of the scale or any pentatonic note that's in the scale under the lead melody. I will then arpeggiate that. Not the chords itself..

My own personal journey in music over the last half century started with SATB choral singing (both Broadway and liturgical) including choral hymn arrangements and eventually reaching into Gregorian Chant, and even a little choral direction. I was also a DJ. I thought that long experience made my understanding dated and worthless… “BORING”. Thank you for vividly demonstrating to me a validation of my own half century seeking musical relevance.

The irony is that the advert at the end of this video is the exact thing you were throwing shade at. That aside, voicing is something that I've been trying to focus on when making music. It really does go a long way to making good music

I bought a C# major from Unison, it's excellent, I use it everywhere, really punchy.

I would buy that track and listen to it

Slaps; yes. Love that soft riser and that snare; tasty af.

Loving the click bate title for good old fashion basic information! Also it feels like you are imbeding the normal snark in the demos. Such good delivery!

I love you.

Thank you for continuing to remind me not to write chord progressions. Now on with the video. Your torso moving up and down in the video is some God-tier film making 😂

yeah slapping

Reallly interesting. I didn't watch the Melodies video first, but went back to that one - very good. One comment though - why restrict composition to just one horizontal melodic line? That would lead on to counterpoint - but why not. Sometimes just "mashing" two or even more melodies - probably in the same key - actually works. If there are any harmony clashes - well either rewrite or experiment, or just say "too bad that's the way it is!" Your experience as an organist and pianist really shows up here. Your suggestion that Bach didn't really think vertically is interesting - though his compositional methods may not actually have been quite like that. He clearly was very talented, and by the time he moved to Leipzig he was producing so much music that in fact he was really running a kind of music production line - using his students - eventually many of them - to do a lot of the grunt work. It's really worth taking a trip to the Bach museum opposite the church in Leipzig to get just a slight feel for the magnitude of what he was doing.

Right,.. you just nailed it like it's nothing 😅

Such interesting!!! Thank u so much!! Have u ever heard the song Saturate by The Chemical Brothers? Reminds me the one you played here 😅

It kind of reminds me of the way I've seen Deadmau5 work, but using the piano roll rather than by playing a keyboard. He'll just plonk parallel notes down on the grid, then drag them up and down until he's happy with the intervals and harmonic progression. I get the feeling that he's thinking horizontally, using his ears, and not about chords or key changes. The end result is similar to yours, and to choral music, in that you hear a series of parallel melodies, rather than block chords. I guess you could do similar things with chains of clips in a sequencer - write a measure or two of melody, copy it and chain it, then edit the pitch of a note or two, and/or the rhythmic pattern, then keep repeating this process, to make the tune evolve. Then copy the original clip to another track, edit the pitches to make a counterpoint, then copy-and-paste to make that evolve too. I was thinking this out as I was writing, now I need to go and try it!