Adding Chords to a Piece

Now what you know how to compose a melody, you can learn how to back up that melody with a bass line.

For this example, though I won’t be using my own melody. I’m too lazy to do that. Instead, I will choose a melody from a musical piece that’s in the public domain. How about Ode to Joy? What’s Beethoven going to do about it, haunt me in my dreams?

Click here to hear the melody line to Ode to Joy



Alright. The melody line is done (I know there was more to Beethoven‘s ninth symphony, but as far as we care, the melody is done). However, it’s not very interesting. What we need to do now is figure out which chords go best with the melody.

Some say that, in order to find chords to go with a piece, you should know the key of the piece (for convenience, the key of this piece, the way I’ve arranged it, is C major / A minor, so there are not sharps or flats). This is somewhat true. The best chords which will take up most of the piece are those you will find that use the same notes as the key signature of your piece contains. I think, though, that while it is usually necessary to use some sort of key structure whan thinking about chords, if is also necessary to remember that a piece usually sounds most interesting in the parts that deviate from the original chosen key.

I’ve added a few chords to this piece. They may not be the correct chords, and you may not like them, but I think they’re fine. If you want to add your own chords to Ode to Joy, feel free to do so and e-mail the sheet music and/or sound file to me. I’m really lonely. I knew I should have started this blog in the year 1998 so that I would’ve had some readers.

Click here to hear Ode to Joy with chords



Notice that I wrote down the names of the chords at certain parts of the piece. These are all major chords. As I’ve mentioned before, major chords usually sound happy, hence the name of this piece, “Ode to Joy”. Also notice that all these chords share the same notes as the C major key signature.

The reason I added the names of the chords was because 1) This allows people reading the nusical piece to use different inversions of the chords, playing arpeggios if they wish, and still allowing the piece to sound somewhat the same, and 2) Melody Assistant isn’t that great at writing the actual musical scores, so I had to write in the chords to make them clearer. Anyway, now that we have some chords, we can add the chords into the piece in any way we want.

Click here to hear the complete version of Ode to Joy



As you can see, I’ve added come arpeggios in the bass cleff. I’ve also made the treble cleff a bit bolder by putting in chords instread of just individual notes. For something I composed (or arranged) in about an hour on one Sunday morning, I think this is actually pretty good.

Notice that all the notes I added (except for some of the original melody line) are parts of the chords mentioned above the bars. The melody line is okay, though, because the key sinature of the chords and the melody stays the same throughout the piece.

The way I used the chords, though, is actually very simple. The piece basically contains constant arpeggios on the left hand, and chords on the right. You can do a lot more with chords, but this is a start. Keep composing music and you will eventually come up with more creative ideas for the harmony of a musical piece.