Music Theory for Electronic Musicians 4: Twists and Turns

Explore non chord tones to add twists over a chord progression, moving beyond block chords with passing tones, neighbor tones, passing chords, and neighbor chords through clear voice leading.

Apply passing tones, non chord tones that connect chord notes by stepping through the key, as shown in the F major to A minor progression with inside voices.

Explore neighbor tones and passing tones, learning how to move stepwise up or down within a measure and blur lines in a chord progression.

Learn how to blur the lines in a chord progression by using passing tones, neighbor tones, and suspensions to connect notes, vary rhythm, and introduce non chord chords.

Add passing chords between chords in the original core progression to gain color and motion, using careful voice leading and a subtle chromatic riff.

Explore neighbor chords in key, using parallel chords and a fifth relationship like F to C for motion, then enhance progressions with suspensions.

Explore suspensions to blur chords and sustain chord tones, creating diatonic dissonance and an emotional string or synth texture through rhythmic displacement.

Learn how rhythmic displacement moves notes by half a bar to create tension and a suspension feel, distinct from traditional suspended chords, making chord progressions more alive for upper voices.

Stay in the key to hear how suspensions work in diatonic progressions, shifting one note at a time in the top voices while avoiding the bass.

Explore the appoggiatura, introducing a non-chord tone and then shifting the chord to turn it into a chord tone, using whole-step and half-step examples that resolve dissonance into consonance.

Appoggiaturas can move up or down, but going down creates a natural downward gravity in chords, producing a rolling downhill feel that can evoke sadness.

Learn to blur the lines of a chord progression with non-chord tones and suspensions, using appoggiaturas, passing tones, neighbor tones, and passing chords to add character and avoid blockiness.

Explore cadences, the endings of chord progressions, with a focus on the perfect authentic cadence and unique challenges in electronic music.

Explore perfect cadences in electronic music, detailing five to one progressions, the five chord becoming major in minor keys, and root motion that creates closure with looping progressions.

Explore imperfect authentic cadences, transforming the five one progression by using chords not in root position, including seventh and diminished seventh chords resolving to the one.

Explore half cadences by ending progressions on the five to create tense, unresolved moments, and learn how looping back to one yields an authentic cadence.

Explain plagal cadences, or playgirl cadences, moving from four to one and softer than five to one, with hymns as a key example in major and minor contexts.

Explore deceptive cadences, where the dominant chord (V) resolves to something other than the tonic (I), often yielding V to vi or to a relative minor to twist a progression.

Explore sequences as premade chord progressions that follow patterns, like fifths on the circle of fifths, to create a rolling, recognizable harmony.

Explore why to use sequences to streamline chord progressions, view diatonic patterns in C major, and learn how to break or bend the sequence for creative voice leading.

Explore the ascending fifth (descending fourth) sequence from C major, moving through one, five, two, and six chords, with minor two and six for diatonic voice leading.

Explore the descending fifth and ascending fourth patterns in a C major framework, using a one-four-seven-three progression to study voice leading, cadence, and non-chord tones.

Explore fourth-based chord progressions from E to A and beyond, analyzing major/minor qualities, root-position versus inversions, cadences like 5–1 and 1–7–6–5.

Explore descending fifth sequences in a minor key, compare natural minor with raised leading tones, and strengthen five one cadences using harmonic or melodic minor variants.

Explore chromatic sequences and descending fifth sequences in music theory for electronic musicians, transposing patterns beyond the key, navigating flats and sharps, and guiding voice-leading toward key changes.

Explore how chromatic sequences enable rapid key changes, turning the prior chord into a seven chord and landing on a strong five-seven to one cadence to tonic.

Descend by thirds per chord to form the descending third sequence, usable in major or minor, chromatic or diatonic, with voice leading and a chord-per-bar example in C.

Demonstrate descending third sequences in a minor key by counting down notes and adjusting voicing to minor, major, or diminished, with leading-tone movement from g to g sharp to a.

Explore ascending third progressions in C major, showing how stacking thirds builds chords such as C major seven, nine, and eleven, and why this can sound like one extended chord.

Explore a progression by seconds that builds on a diatonic chord progression, revealing an alternating sound that feels limited alone but becomes more interesting when multiple sequences play together.

Explore combining two sequences to create a distinctive chord progression, shown through a modification that layers two sequences, exemplified by Pocket Bells Canon in D.

The analysis shows an ascending fifths progression in D major—D to A, B minor to F sharp minor, G to D—connected by seconds, forming a four-to-five cadence back to one.

Explore structure concepts such as phrases, motives, sentences, periods, hyper meter, and modulation, shaping melodies, chord progressions, key changes, and track organization.

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