(Theory) Why do these chords suck, and how can I fix them?

[DZComposer]

I'm working on a choral work. It's a standard 4-part SATB, which is something I haven't really done a lot of. I have a vision for what I want it to sound like, but I'm having trouble getting there.

I like the chords I have chosen when I play them individually, but together they sound like ass and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. I want these smooth chords, a touch of dissonance here and there, but instead of something nice and flowing I get a freaking muddy sounding mess.

Obviously something is wrong with the leading and voicing (or perhaps even my choice of chords to begin with).

Chord theory has always been one of my weaknesses, and in this case it is preventing me from achieving desired results.

Here are four bars of the piece both in score and in MIDI format:

GIF:

MP3 Mockup:

http://www.dzcomposer.com/helpfiles/chordhelp.mp3

MIDI (Don't just listen to this, the MP3 sounds a lot better despite being the same chords):

http://www.dzcomposer.com/helpfiles/chordhelp.mid

I have a melody in the Soprano, countermelody in the Alto, and the Tenor and Bass harmonize with the soprano.

In case you don't recognize it, the source is the Aquas BGM from Star Fox 64. (

) I'm trying to do a proper choral arrangement of it instead of the terrible parallel 5th-based harmony in the original.

Anyone have any suggestions and pointers for working with complex chords?

Edited September 8, 2013 by DZComposer

[Frederic Petitpas]

You have some dissonants in there man

A and Am don't get along at the same time

[Frederic Petitpas]

[DZComposer]

Can you explain that further? I don't necessarily think that minor chords with 7ths or 11th chords sound bad. Also, I'm, not a guitarist so tablature really doesn't help me see things better than standard notation.

To clarify, I don't think there is something inherently wrong with those chords on their own. Obviously I made an error in their use, and I'm trying to understand what that error is.

Edited September 8, 2013 by DZComposer

[Moseph]

My experience has been that even very good choral music sounds terrible when played with a General MIDI patch, and I think what you have here would sound quite good if you could hear a real choir sing it.

I've mocked it up with a string section, which I think gives a decent impression of the musicality of it. (Contrabasses double cellos an octave down, and the alto's first note is transposed to put it within violin range, but otherwise the passage is unchanged.) When you have a piece of music like this that isn't clearly based in functional harmony, phrasing and performance nuance become extremely important in cuing the listener in on how the music is supposed to hang together. Unfortunately, you don't get much of this in automated Finale/Sibelius-style playback, so you either have to do a better mockup yourself or just trust that when your instincts tell you something will work, it will work despite how bad the playback sounds.

Speaking of parallel fifths, you've got them between the bass and soprano in the fourth measure, if that matters to you (and in this style of music I don't think it's a big deal).

[DZComposer]

My experience has been that even very good choral music sounds terrible when played with a General MIDI patch, and I think what you have here would sound quite good if you could hear a real choir sing it.

Wow, I was a bit skeptical about that. I actually wrote it in Cubase, using the Kontakt 5 library's choir as a mockup instrument. It didn't sound better in Cubase with the K5 really, but I just ran this section through EWQL Symphonic Choirs instead of the K5 and did some quick-and-dirty phrase shaping on it and it almost sounds like a different piece! The shaping really put a damper on the muddiness.

http://www.dzcomposer.com/helpfiles/chordhelp.mp3

Now if only I had access to a real choir...

I think there are still a few issues I need to iron out, but you are right, it is actually not as bad as I had originally thought! I'm no longer bummed about this piece. Thanks a bunch!

Edited September 8, 2013 by DZComposer

[Frederic Petitpas]

Can you explain that further? I don't necessarily think that minor chords with 7ths or 11th chords sound bad. Also, I'm, not a guitarist so tablature really doesn't help me see things better than standard notation.

To clarify, I don't think there is something inherently wrong with those chords on their own. Obviously I made an error in their use, and I'm trying to understand what that error is.

Yes, I thought they worked well as chords; one entity.

Maybe the problem is that you have 4 separated instruments ?

The only place that really doesn't work at all to me is the first chord of the second bar; lowered the note of the first instrument by half a step and it's less creepy.. but it might just be me

[Radiowar]

technically speaking there are a number of "errors" here that may be causing the issues you're hearing. some general thoughts, without (hopefully) being too pedantic:

• an overabundance of 4ths and 7ths - not necessarily a problem, as the source is very 4ths heavy (though it seems to me this arrangement is lacking a solid foundation in the bass), though you want to be careful about leaping to dissonances, especially when leaping from dissonances.
  
• tenor part at m.1-2, for example, is a little mean (almost entirely made up of leaps). choral writing differs from orchestral writing in this sense. (also the alto figures in m. 2 and m. 4)
  
• m. 1 harmony is unclear. very broadly, it seems to suggest something like ii7 - V , though this is confused by the bass motion and the 4ths-and-7ths-ness of the soprano, alto, and tenor.
  
• m. 2 harmony is very unclear as well. as far as i can tell, you have viiø7 - vi7 - V - I (with the B suspended in the bass?) | (VII . . .) the modulation to VII is at the very least unprepared. at beats 2-3 you have both the bass and tenor leaping against a rising soprano line (to a tripled B, no less), and given the uncertainty of the underlying harmony it can be difficult to grasp.
  
• voice crossing alto and tenor in m. 3 may be unintentionally obscuring the alto. perhaps the tenor could rest and have the B on beat 2?
  
• rhythmically speaking this is quite rigid and square (beats 3-4 of m. 1 in particular, where every voice is on 8th notes). a more sustained bass, and a tenor and alto with fewer leaps (and perhaps some rests) might add some rhythmic tension, textural clarity, and prevent you from articulating harmonies you do not intend.
  

to generalize, i think most of the issues come from the fact that you're dealing with a lot of parallel 4th movement, which is difficult to deal with in SATB writing. the difficulty is going to be to treat them in a way where 1) the harmony is clear as possible, 2) there arent any unnecessary dissonances created by awkward leaps, and 3) ensuring a solid foundation in your bass/tenor(+baritone??), which is tricky given the limited number of voices available to you.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Radiowar

[Moseph]

Without getting into a detailed discussion of part-writing conventions, one thing that jumps out at me is how much this sounds like a transitional section of music rather than an opening melodic statement (I'm assuming that you intend it to be the latter). As Radiowar mentioned, the harmonic function of the bass is generally unclear. This isn't in itself necessarily a problem depending on the effect you're aiming for, but I think that it's the single most significant factor that gives the music this transitional feel.

As an example of how you might go about revising the bass, here's my own quick and dirty rewrite of the bass -- everything else is the same. (Caveat: The low D is lower than I would actually want to write for choral bass in this context, and there are a few other new problems, so a general rewrite of everything would be needed to make my bass line work really well.)

Notice how the bass seems to have a lot more direction. The bass in mm. 1 and 3 provides reasonably clear chord roots with mm. 2 and 4 filling in the space between the roots. I'm also taking advantage of contrary motion between the soprano and the bass. As the soprano moves up, the bass moves down, and this helps the whole thing sound a bit more balanced than your original, which had the bass constantly moving in the same direction as the soprano. And the motion of the bass has established itself clearly enough over the course of these four measures for us to guess that the bass note at the start of measure 5 will probably be E, or possibly C#. Which isn't to say that it has to be, but anything else is likely to come as a surprise to the listener, which could be a good thing -- the point is, an expectation for the bass's behavior has been set up and can be fulfilled or thwarted depending on the effect you want.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Moseph

[DZComposer]

technically speaking there are a number of "errors" here that may be causing the issues you're hearing. some general thoughts, without (hopefully) being too pedantic:

• an overabundance of 4ths and 7ths - not necessarily a problem, as the source is very 4ths heavy (though it seems to me this arrangement is lacking a solid foundation in the bass), though you want to be careful about leaping to dissonances, especially when leaping from dissonances.
  
• tenor part at m.1-2, for example, is a little mean (almost entirely made up of leaps). choral writing differs from orchestral writing in this sense. (also the alto figures in m. 2 and m. 4)
  
• m. 1 harmony is unclear. very broadly, it seems to suggest something like ii7 - V , though this is confused by the bass motion and the 4ths-and-7ths-ness of the soprano, alto, and tenor.
  
• m. 2 harmony is very unclear as well. as far as i can tell, you have viiø7 - vi7 - V - I (with the B suspended in the bass?) | (VII . . .) the modulation to VII is at the very least unprepared. at beats 2-3 you have both the bass and tenor leaping against a rising soprano line (to a tripled B, no less), and given the uncertainty of the underlying harmony it can be difficult to grasp.
  
• voice crossing alto and tenor in m. 3 may be unintentionally obscuring the alto. perhaps the tenor could rest and have the B on beat 2?
  
• rhythmically speaking this is quite rigid and square (beats 3-4 of m. 1 in particular, where every voice is on 8th notes). a more sustained bass, and a tenor and alto with fewer leaps (and perhaps some rests) might add some rhythmic tension, textural clarity, and prevent you from articulating harmonies you do not intend.
  

to generalize, i think most of the issues come from the fact that you're dealing with a lot of parallel 4th movement, which is difficult to deal with in SATB writing. the difficulty is going to be to treat them in a way where 1) the harmony is clear as possible, 2) there arent any unnecessary dissonances created by awkward leaps, and 3) ensuring a solid foundation in your bass/tenor(+baritone??), which is tricky given the limited number of voices available to you.

Without getting into a detailed discussion of part-writing conventions, one thing that jumps out at me is how much this sounds like a transitional section of music rather than an opening melodic statement (I'm assuming that you intend it to be the latter). As Radiowar mentioned, the harmonic function of the bass is generally unclear. This isn't in itself necessarily a problem depending on the effect you're aiming for, but I think that it's the single most significant factor that gives the music this transitional feel.

As an example of how you might go about revising the bass, here's my own quick and dirty rewrite of the bass -- everything else is the same. (Caveat: The low D is lower than I would actually want to write for choral bass in this context, and there are a few other new problems, so a general rewrite of everything would be needed to make my bass line work really well.)

Notice how the bass seems to have a lot more direction. The bass in mm. 1 and 3 provides reasonably clear chord roots with mm. 2 and 4 filling in the space between the roots. I'm also taking advantage of contrary motion between the soprano and the bass. As the soprano moves up, the bass moves down, and this helps the whole thing sound a bit more balanced than your original, which had the bass constantly moving in the same direction as the soprano. And the motion of the bass has established itself clearly enough over the course of these four measures for us to guess that the bass note at the start of measure 5 will probably be E, or possibly C#. Which isn't to say that it has to be, but anything else is likely to come as a surprise to the listener, which could be a good thing -- the point is, an expectation for the bass's behavior has been set up and can be fulfilled or thwarted depending on the effect you want.

Thanks, guys. This is exactly the kind of help I was looking for. Looks like I've got some work to do.