Coming up with chords for songs?

Playing/Techniques
#1

I was watching the Eleanor Rigby lesson, and I had a question! How do you all decide on what chords/harmonies/correct-word to use? For instance, in the beginning Mike plays D and A#, I think. How did he know that those two would go so well? What is that, a diminished fifth?
I realize now that we can do chords and other multi-note sounds, but that just opens up so many possibilities, and it melts my brain.

So maybe as a start, why start Eleanor Rigby with those two notes? Is that how the song goes? If it is, I suppose I should just get a better pair of ears.

#2

Anthony,
I’d start by just studying the lay out of the diatonic major scale.
Also known as “do re mi fa sol la to do” or more popularly in the west as C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C.

In modern music theory terms we have further simplified it now as to simply refer to the diatonic scale as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 (with 8 being the octave C-C etc.)

Chords (harmonies ) begin by being built in thirds. That basically means skipping a note each time

For example
1,3,5 or CEG
2,4,6 or DFA
3,5,7 or EGB
Etc. etc. etc.

When that is translated into theoretical terms we get the basic structure of what we call “chords”

For example
C E G is called C major
DFA is called d minor

And so on…

To begin understanding how notes and chords go together (as in the notion of a melody being harmonized with chords ), the basic concept to integrate into this picture is that if a melody focuses on the notes C E G the harmony or chord will almost certainly be C major! for example a melody that goes something like . . .

C C E F G, G F E, G G G E C (the F in this case is clearly just a passing note that connects the C ,E and G)

Next step is to apply this same concept to all chords.

In the key of C major the chords are built on the notes as follows…

C major
d minor
e minor
F major
G major
a minor
b diminished

1 Like
#3

There is a harmony option in my scale viewer that can give you an alternate set of notes to play to another set of notes. It will go either a minor or major third down (meaning towards the tenjin) and if one of those exist in the scale it will show the note of that position as a green note. It should work for most scales.

For example, since Eleanor Rigby is in Dorian you can select that from the Scale-dropdown. Look at the D (no pun intended) and you will see A# in the green circle on the same position. This means that if you in this scale would play the notes C, D, D# over and over again, another shamisen player could play A, A# C at the same time and IT WOULD BE GLORIOUS! (to cite my favorite guitar player and tutor Paul Gilbert).

Here is the link: http://shamisentest.karlhedlund.se/scaleviewer

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