Reharmonizing Techniques

[SostenutO]

I heard about something called reharmonizing. Call it what you want, but it is basically taking chord progressions and adding "stuff to it". For example you don't just play the chords they tell you to because that gets boring. I read some things online about techniques such as "walk-ups/downs" or these stops that add a very nice effect to blues/gospel etc. Can anyone explain to me some useful techniques for playing chords. Maybe something that gives the chords a more gospel feel. Thanks.

[Los Boleros]

Originally Posted by SostenutO

I heard about something called reharmonizing. Call it what you want, but it is basically taking chord progressions and adding "stuff to it". For example you don't just play the chords they tell you to because that gets boring. I read some things online about techniques such as "walk-ups/downs" or these stops that add a very nice effect to blues/gospel etc. Can anyone explain to me some useful techniques for playing chords. Maybe something that gives the chords a more gospel feel. Thanks.

If you are playing by yourself, then you will be respnsible for producing the melody as well as the chords. The inversion of the chord that you select should have the melody line as the highest note.
Example:
If I was to play "Happy birthday to you" in the key of A, then I would use as the first A chord, A,C#,E because E is the note that your ear will hear.

Now If I was gonna play, Happy Birthday to You" but I was only providing the chords for someone else to sing, Then I would chose:
E,A,C#

That way the C# from my chord is in harmony with the E note of the melody.

[SostenutO]

Thx, but I meant more along the lines of making chord progressions sound better. I heard the term used as Reharmonizing. I want to know techniques used when playing chord progressions such as runs, walk-ups, etc. I don't really know much about these techniques...

[SeattleRuss]

Long, long ago.....before reharmonization.......there was......

harmonization!

Seriously though, reharmonization refers to taking a melody or whole song, complete with melody and harmony (already has chord changes) and while keeping the melody line the same, changing the underlying harmony. There are numerous approaches to this and really, it's up to your ear (or somebody else's) wants to hear.

It's actually quite fun to try with simple well-known melodies. a lot of the time (not always), you will notice that the melody note will be the top note of the chord. Try changing the notes underneath and see what you get.

It's sounds to me though, that you might benefit from learning to harmonize melodic lines first. Actually, reharmonization excercises are a great way to learn to harmonize lines too!

Maybe some forumite can suggest a good book?

[sixstrings121]

Is this the same thing as 'Tonal Coloring'?

[SeattleRuss]

Is this the same thing as 'Tonal Coloring'?

I'm not familiar with that terminology. I don't know if it's made it's way into the lexicon yet....I am familiar with Crayola Coloring....

[Malcolm]

Click here

The string talks about chord embellishment. That and back cycling may be what you have reference to.

[Poparad]

Reharmonization is just changing the chords to an existing melody to suit your whim. You can add more chords, take out chords, or keep the same number of chords and replace them with different ones. The basic pricinples are the same as when you write any other kind of harmony.


Here's a reharm I did on Silent Night a year ago:

http://gozips.uakron.edu/~jjp14/silentnight.pdf
http://gozips.uakron.edu/~jjp14/silentnight.mp3

[gersdal]

Nice arrangement of Silent Night, Poparad. I did an arrangement of the same song around Christmas some years ago. It would be great to have your comments to my effort.

Silent Night's chord progression goes something like:
|G|G|G|G|D|D|G|G|C|C|G|G|C|C|G|G|D|D|G|G|G|D|G|

My reharmonisation is something like:
|G7|G7|G7|G7|D9|Eb+9|Em7|G7|C7|C7|G7|G7|C7|C7|G7|G 7|D9|D#dim|G7|Em7|G-Gdim-Ddim|D-D7-D#dim|G7|

The reharmosation is purely by ear and fitting the chords to the melody. However, hopefully there are some elements of correct theory in it as well. The arrangement with melody is in the ptb file.

EDIT:
Off course I would like comments from anyone, not just Poparad's as the original message may indicate.

[sixstrings121]

I think tonal coloring is when you take a melody, and add any chords over it as long as you think it sounds good (they can be out of key and such) is that the same as reharmonization?

[Doug McMullen]

There's a book called "Reharmonization" put out by Berklee Press, it's by Randy Felts. It is an _excellent_ book. I reccommend it. You will learn a lot about how chords flow from it.

There's also big section of "the jazz theory book" by Mark Levine devoted to reharmonization. I like the Jazz Theory Book and the sheer size of it and the number of musical examples make it fun for dipping into... but for reharmonization I much prefer the Berklee book.

Doug.

[gersdal]

I thought that this tread was in the Composition, Arranging & Analysis, and checked as there was no reply and comments to Poparad's and my reharmonisation and arrangement. A little suprised to find it in the Piano & Keys Forum. Possibly my mistake, but looking at the tread - maybe a move to the Composition, Arranging & Analysis forum would fit the topic better. Both Poparads great reharmonisation and arrangement and my rather uneducated attempt is for guitar rather than for piano. Anyway, I would very much like some feedback, whatever and wherever. Maybe it's the wrong season for this arrangement

[SostenutO]

No, it doesn't because it regards Piano. Also, I used the wrong terminology. I wanted to know some techniques for playing chords. Like instead of playing F-Bb-C you would add little things to make it sound better. For example in gospel.

[gersdal]

Point taken. However, it applies to guitar and other instruments as well as piano, and that's the reason for my proposal for moving it to the more general and not instrument specific Composition, Arranging & Analysis, but in the end it's your thread, so ...
As the action in this thread is rather slow, I ordered "Reharmonization" by Randy Felts today. Hope your right Doug.

[SostenutO]

That is true, but I was shooting for more of a piano technique tips, etc etc, for playing chords [progressions].