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Friday, July 13, 2018

109. 2ND HARMONIC ORDER MELODIC THEMES BRIDGING TWO SUCCESSIVE CHORDS AND THE ROLE OF THE HARMONIC AND CHROMATIC SIMPLISTIC SUB-MELODIES

(This post has no been written completely yet)


Melodic themes that span from one chord to the next have more complicated harmony as the underlying harmony is two successive chords compared to a melodic theme that sounds during a single chord. That is why they are called 2nd harmonic order

Methods of creating melodic themes during a single chord sounding have been already described at least in post 141. We had described there that one of the simplest methods is the next:

When spending time with the melody with an underlying chord the best idea is to have the chord in 4-notes form e.g. like a with 7nth or with 6th, and in the current octave or in the next. Then start the melody at a note of the chord and end it again at a note of a chord in this or the next octave. For example, we may compose the melody from 3-notes micro-themes, the first and last inside the chords and the middle possible outside the chords. Since the chord has 4-notes and the scale  7 notes the passing or transient notes are only 3, less than the 4 of the chord, therefore, any such melodic theme fits harmonically to this chord.

Here is an example :

Now, this technique can be extended when passing from one chord to a next. Instead of having the one chord on two octaves and moving from the one octave to the next, we have two chords and we start from a note of the first chord so as to end with a note of the 2nd chord, and controlling of course that the passing or transient notes that do not belong to either chord, are less or sound  less time than the notes of the chords..


As we analyzed in post 104, the Harmonic simplicial sub-melody is a kind of extreme maximum distances among successive chords, while the chromatic simplicial sub-melody is a kind of minimum distance among two successive chords. As we mentioned the harmonic simplicial submelody has at most one note per chord, while the chromatic simplicial submelody has at most 2 notes per chord. 

Now methods of creating melodic themes even inside single chord as in post 103, can be based on the harmonic and chromatic sub-melodies. 

For example we may create from the melodic seeds  order-topological pattern or shape of a melodic themes, a realization of them . For a chord this creates two themes one that starts from the left (first) note of the chromatic simplicial submelody and ends to the harmonic simplical submelody note, and a second which starts from the harmonic simplicial submelody note and ends to the right (second) note of the chromatic simplicial submelody. These themes concatenated with a chromatic link of the right and left notes of the chromatic simplicial submelody of two successive chords and  may create a full and dense melody for the given chord progression.

If the duration of the chord is rather limited, then obviously we create one only of the two such melodic themes.

Because of the property of maxima of the harmonic submelody, the melodic theme is somehow long enough and between harmonic intervals. While because of the property of minimum distances of the notes of the chromatic simlpicial submelody, such a melody also links in the shortest and most chromatic way two succesive chords. This creates an oscillation or wave between harmonicity and chromaticity in the melody which is a beautiful form of balance.

Since the interval distance of the notes of the harmonic Simplicial submelody for two successive chords is in general quite variable, the initial melodic seed order-topological shape of the initial melodic theme may or may not be preserved. But even if its preserved we have an homeomorphism variation of the melodic theme from chord o chord instead of a standard mode-translation. In this way the contraction-expansions (dilations or hoemorphisms) of the seed melodic themes is created naturally as in conformance with the existing harmony of the initial chord progression.

Obviously this method creates also a constraint of how long or how short the chords should sound, therefore it suggests also a rhythm standard to the chord duration neither too long neither too short so that the melody is neither too slow neither too fast. In other words the rhythmic duration of the chords (poetical measure as it has been called earlier) should be determined only after the creation of the melody.
 Therefore in the suggested above method the order of determinations is the next
1) The chord progression
2) The harmonic simplicial submelody
3) The chromatic simplicial submelody
4) The full melody after the melodic seeds and the 1),2),3)
5) The duration  of each one beat and how many beats per chord. 


MELODY-HARMONY INTERACTIVE COMPOSITION (BY INTERVALS OF 5THS AND 8THS).
The technique of melody composition which is described in this post 109, and which is supposed to require a chord progression in advance, can be applied also for melody composition without a chord progression given in advance, but in recursive way starting from the melody . This means that we start with the first realization of the order-topological theme, and so as to compose the next we compose simultaneously an underlying harmony , in other words a  next chord, and also a next melodic theme and so on. This interactive method for reasons of simplicity may compose as correlated harmony a power chord always in various positions, but the harmonic and chromatic simplicial sub-melody need again calculation. The power-chord play only the role of placing the melodic theme, inside the scale, and requiring that the melody passes from harmonic intervals of 8th or 5th. The actual chords that finally would accompany the melody may be different!.
We may of course predetermine a scale but this is nit always necessary.

Since determining a scale determines also a set of chords but not an ordered sequence of the (chord-progression), we may also conceive such a more lose condition in the composition of the melody : Instead of a predetermined chord progression a predetermined set of chords with no pre-decided order. Then as we want to go to the next melodic theme, w just choose a next chord from the predefined set of chords, and apply the method of the post 109.

The boundaries of the range of the available instruments upper and lower (usually 2 or 3 octaves) serve as reflectors, where the melodic themes may have inversion variations either  in pitch or time.



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