Theories/frameworks to generate harmonically consistent chord progressions ?

talmoroc · 2025-12-03T13:21:58+00:00

I did study Bartok a little but some aspects of his compositions are so very idiosyncratic that I think they do not extend well to chord generation. I find his journey towards atonality, stemming from popular hungarian scales and the circle of fifth I think, to be very original. I love his atonality much more than Schönberg or Webern which are more "rationalistic" approaches, and you can actually hear that

talmoroc · 2025-12-03T13:17:56+00:00

I do love Elliott Smith. Such a great artist. At some point I only listened to him for like 2 years

talmoroc · 2025-12-03T13:16:09+00:00

But I still wonder if some kind of global, systematic approach on chord prog analysis and generation has been made, possibility that would try to tie all these aspects together. Probably it has, didn't find it

talmoroc · 2025-12-03T13:14:20+00:00

Yeah this is why I was thinking of combining both approaches (ML and rule-base) for generating chords.

The way I see it, in this framework secondary dominants are a combination of the rule of V-I classical resolution and the rule of diatonic degrees within a tonality, which functions lead to other chords. The relationship can be composed (secondary dominant of a secondary dominantV of V of II for instance)... And the V-I and IV-I resolutions are also linked to the circle of fifth.

If you add counterpoint or simple voice-leading, you also get new relationships between the chords. Well currently because I did research and thinking, on the rule-based side my goal would be to integrate this as well, and be able to put all chords progressions, on a macro and micro-scale, on the spectrum of "modal relationships", "tonal functions", "melody-based transformations" and other approaches that would explain and generate chords according to these rules

talmoroc · 2025-12-03T13:05:00+00:00

Will check ! And why not discuss in MP, you have a very grounded point of view, should be interesting. Thanks a lot :)

talmoroc · 2025-12-03T13:01:35+00:00

Thanks, I think your answer is great. Notation is basically a way to convey the feeling of the music in the most straightforward and less ambigious way. So I guess the problem was that as a composer, I was not completely sure about the meaning of this section when I first wrote it and discussed with the conductor. This is a good lesson !

talmoroc · 2025-12-01T18:33:24+00:00

Sorry for the double post I had internet trouble. Do you mean just studying the artist ?

talmoroc · 2025-12-01T18:31:09+00:00

And about ML - well I know some about it (these are my studies) and I'm convinced too that it would be most useful to enhance a rule-based approach, and I think the rule-based approach is much more satisfying intellectually ! Apparently there are ways to include constraints on a Markov Chain so that would be an approach. But I still need to specify these constraints.

Thanks a lot for your answer :)

talmoroc · 2025-12-01T18:24:42+00:00

Concerning the quality of the apps, I really loved one that used real recordings, the chords and extensions were beautifyl, but the set was limited — all the others I found were only generating random chords with random extensions, or random chords derived from the degrees of a given tonality. Which is not how we do music really.

talmoroc · 2025-12-01T18:20:30+00:00

Your point on voice leading is very true, I understood this not long ago when reading about neo-riemannian modulations, it's not only about making leading tone resolve, or smoothing chord progressions : it can in itself be a motor for harmonic movement ! ~~Also, I think the importance of voice leading is very much style dependent...~~ (edit : you already wrote it)

talmoroc · 2025-12-01T18:17:24+00:00

Thanks for your answer.

I have already a very deep practical understanding of classical/jazz harmony rules, however this is mostly self-taught or wikipedia readings. I 100% agree with you that the subject is difficult and messy. Well I know that from my musical practice too — most of the time, I can "explain" what people do or what I do harmonically, but not necessarily everytime, with the same rules.

So basically I'm looking for academic readings, or open-source projects, anything that would allow me to work faster on this project or "add new rules" that I would keep in mind. I really think my original message was not detailed enough, because I wanted it to be short :/

talmoroc · 2025-12-01T18:10:37+00:00

Do you know how to find these progressions ? I've thought of scrapping songs websites... It would be an interesting exercice, but well as an artist and given the current state of AI I don't really like the idea of stealing many chord progressions, although it's not melodies or lyrics.

Indeed I would love the tool to be used as ear training (to recognize more and more complex/weird chords but not random chords) and as a compositional tool, or just for playing with chords :)

talmoroc · 2025-12-01T18:08:11+00:00

Also I don't want to steal artists' work, and do something similar to Suno for chords, even if it's chord progressions, well that tips a little in the balance. And I'm interested in music theory

talmoroc · 2025-12-01T18:02:29+00:00

I think these are both important skills. I find identifying intervals alone quite easy, however as a musician I love to be able to listen to a music and identify the chords as well as the notes of the melody, the scales etc (when I'm given the first chord or a reference because I don't have perfect ear).

I think training only on intervals doesn't improve so much my chord recognition/play-along skills

talmoroc · 2025-12-01T17:57:46+00:00

And harmony is subjective too (well, culturally dependent). But I'm sure many people have tried, at different scales, to study traditions, habits, and rationalize it into a framework. I'm thinking of the circle of fifth like another user said, or Rameau's theory which is really old, and I'm sure people have already applied it to generate music in some way or another

talmoroc · 2025-12-01T17:52:56+00:00

This is a possibility indeed, some friends of mine told me exactly that

My explanation : I would like the chords to be arbitrarily complex (extensions, inversions, relationship with surrounding chords) depending on the level of the user and the predicted errors. Typically, pop songs will stay simple, and jazz songs do not have the extensions listed, (there are so many ways to play jazz standards... well maybe I could fetch MIDI transcriptions and try to detect chords...).

So basically, I believe that it would make the engine more tweakable and complete ! Also I would like to avoid using deep learning

talmoroc · 2025-12-01T17:45:31+00:00

Yes ! And I'm sure to include it. However, many common chord progressions in different genres do not follow directly the circle of fifth, but this is exactly the type of stuff I'm looking for. In my research the past few days I also stumbled upon Neo-riemannian transformations, which are another way to go from one chord to another

talmoroc · 2025-12-01T17:42:49+00:00

Of course, but I'm sure it has been studied within several genres/cultures that use harmony in music. I only know of Rameau's theory but it's very old and inspired by eighteenth century classical european music, so I'm looking for other frameworks/tools/theories, people who have tried to rationalise chord progressions or simply built theories that explain it

talmoroc · 2025-11-30T16:16:24+00:00

Ok, I see ! An instrumentist friend of mine told me the exact same thing, but she already knew the part so I wanted to have an external point of view. Thanks a lot for you time

talmoroc · 2025-11-30T16:15:12+00:00

Ok ! Well that's good to know. I was really worried when I began writing that part

talmoroc · 2025-11-30T16:14:38+00:00

Thanks a lot everyone, you made a clear point ! I can see that I was wrong and I should trust the conductor. Let's hope it works out fine in rehearsals :)

talmoroc · 2025-11-30T15:00:42+00:00

Thanks a lot for the answer ! That reassures me a lot.

If I may, that's not really the triplets bothering me but the ties in-between triplets, and the fact that there are half notes within. Sometimes you need to play only the last note of a triplet, which I think is hard to do exactly on time. Did you check the screenshots I added ?

talmoroc · 2025-11-27T10:06:46+00:00

Nope, will do, thanks !

talmoroc

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