Rubato

Almost every chord possible has a place in a key, you just need to pay attention to the root movements and follow the tendency of the leading tones.



Here vi is replaced by VI, with the progression VI-ii or V-i in D minor or respelled V/ii-ii in C Major, it can be considered an extension of ii, every chord can be preceded by it's dominant/dominant 7th provided it doesn't establish itself as a new tonic, inserting a non-diatonic minor would follow the the same model as it would as ii in it's own key, diminished as ii in minor and augmented as III in minor.

here V is substituted for an augmented chord where the D# leads easily to E. The augmented 6th is a little different, following its role as subdominant in minor with a raised root usualy with an added 7th to avoid doubling the third.

Burning Down

Definitely! There's plenty... hang on though. I'll come back here with some good examples.

Staccato is something completely different - it's a type of articulation just like accents, tenuto, slurs, ties, etc. I think what that person is referring to is called a roll, but I'm not entirely sure as piano is not my main instrument.

venjacques

Blastingas10 -
It sounds like you're now talking about learning the building blocks of music. You'll have to start with the basics then. I'm not sure if you know what makes a chord major and what makes a chord minor. There are some series about this, and they may be a good start (workbooks and all so you can actually make your own, rather than just read about it).

There's an 11-book series I teach from, called the Basics of Keyboard Theory by Julie McIntosh Johnson. I do NOT recommend these. A large portion exercises are rather pointless, the explanations on how to do things are very confusing and/or wrong, and the books are littered with typos.

In hopes for a better book, I made mine. You can find it via my website. It assumes you know nothing about music, so it might be too basic for you. It's a first level book and will teach you how to make any major / minor chord, how basic key signatures work, terms in traditional music, rhythm notation, and scales and how they function. It's filled with exercises that work, and I've had positive reviews.

When I was learning theory in college, we used a text book / workbook series called Tonal Harmony by Stefan Kostka and Dorothy Payne. This series is nice too, and then would give you just one book that teaches quite a bit, but may be hard to grasp. The good news is, you have a place to post questions if you're ever in doubt.

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Scarv-
A heavier accent is called a sforzando.

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Burning Down

Here. This is from my own homework so the work is not exactly stellar, but it gets the point across.

9th, 11th, and 13th chords are 7th chords with added dissonance. Sorry, the resolution of the image is not the greatest, it's the best I could do though



As you can see, I've written a descending 5ths sequence, and have alternated 9/7 chords with other 7th chords.

Now here's an 11th chord used in a cadential progression (which is what you wanted to know).



And a 13th chord:



By #6 chords, did you mean augmented 6th chords? There are three types (French, German, and Italian) and they work really nicely as pre-dominant chords in a V-I cadence. Here's a French 6th acting as a pre-dominant in a minor key. The top example shows the more typical use of the iiø4/3, and then in the second example you can see that I've replaced it with a French 6th chord:



Here's a French 6th in a major key:



You can also use the bII6 chord (AKA the Phrygian II or Neapolitan 6th chord) as a pre-dominant harmony in a cadential progression. This is a chord that is built on the flattened supertonic (scale degree 2 of the key), and is almost always written in first inversion.

venjacques

Burning Down - excellent rendition. I wanted to point out that the Neapolitan chord can be written as N6.

Further, "pleasing to the ear" is so subjective, it's almost an unfair question.

In a composition, you are the master and you get to call the shots. Your whole thing can be basically a chord progression of:

||: i II iii IV v VI :||

Part of what makes a composition nice to listen to is its predictability. If you repeat a phrase a bunch (not too much where it's totally minimalistic, but some), then the listener can predict what's coming and they get a sense of they know what to expect. So you can establish a section like this ('A'). Then you have contrasting music - varied by the chord progression, rhythm, melody, dynamics, or a combination of these and others. If you then bring back the A section, it'll sound familiar and pleasing to the listener because it's something they recognize.

The only reason some things may sound better to your ears than others is because in common practice, certain progressions are done so frequently. I vi IV V and I IV V I are very common examples (rock n' roll and doo-wop are good examples of utilizing common chord progressions like this).

If you want to sound like everyone else, use these progressions. They work, and they're familiar to the populous of the world. If you want to have your own voice, do something different and make it work your own way. Then you'll be a distinguished artist that carves their own path through the artistic realm of music.

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Salami

I'm going to say that I'm absolutely delighted to take back my previous words in the suggestion thread - you've really put incredible effort into this and I'm genuinely pleased about this. You've contributed more to the site in these last few days than some people do in 6,000 posts.
I'm happy to eat my words - this is working incredibly well and is clearly a good resource.

KJones

Oh so THAT is what he meant. Hmmm.

Btw. Thanks, these progressions will work just nicely. See, I got the theory down pat, but sometimes finding a nice cadence or two is difficult, at least for this budding musician.

Burning Down

Thanks! N6 is also right, but I don't write it that way when doing a Roman numeral analysis of my work. I prefer writing bII6 or natural II6 (depending on the key).

You're welcome!

venjacques

KJones - As far as cadences are concerned, you have 4 standard options-

V to I is called "Authentic"
IV to I is called "Plagal"
Anything ending on a V is called "Half"
And then the Deceptive is V (usually anyway) to a vi chord. The V-vi, when done is a major key is awesome, because it gives you the anticipation for the traditional V - I, but then instead of going to the nice Tonic, it throws you into the relative minor. I tell my students it's like your mom saying "ooo we're going to Disney Land (I) with all this anticipation building up (V) with your mickey mouse ears on, your autograph book in hand, your whole day planned out as far as what you're going to go on, see, do, etc. And then where does she take you? THE FREAKING DENTIST! (vi)"

It sounds really cool though when you think the piece is just going to finish up and gets into some authentic cadences V I V I V I V I Etc and then all of a sudden a V vi and the piece really opens up into a roller coaster of a ride through minor. It's pretty impressive when executed correctly.

If you want something original, just end your phrase on something else. Maybe ii to iii. You can call this the KJones Cadence. Just make up your own, really. If you make up your own system of rules, you'll have a quick pallet from which to pull a lot of material that'll all sound unique as your own sound.

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Salami - Thanks for the comment. Very nice to read that!

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Burning Down - I'm very lazy when it comes to analyzing music. N6 is only like..3 pen strokes. bII6 is more to write for me (like 6 whole strokes!) and so... I don't use it. :P

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lecterz12

hey! all of you earth speak please! darn! are those really music theories?! it sounded like philosophical theories! darn!! i got a question, in creating a song, which is the best, find a tune and notes first or compose the whole thing and find the tune and notes later?!