[HELP] My chord progression sounds wrong

[LutariFan]

EDIT: Clearer version uploaded.

Hello.

So I'm making a trance song, have got the structure and so done. Now I'm making the melody.

https://soundcloud.com/lutarifan/chords-for-crescent-moon

It's a pretty simple melody, but I think it sounds good. However, the problem is the chords. The first 4 sound good I think, and the 2 after that. I think those go together VERY nicely. But then it comes to the two last chords before it loops around to the first ones. I just can't seem to get the last two chords right. Please tell me if there's anything I'm doing horribly wrong, because I probably am.

So, according to the stuff I have learned about music theory, this tune and its first chord should be in A minor. The pad plays the chords, and the pluck plays the melody. The melody starts with a G, but since the first bar has all notes from an A minor chord (A-C-E) and only two notes from C (C-E) I figured A would be the right chord.

And that's where I think the problem might be.

However, I don't really know. I'm still learning, and I'm seeing this song I'm making as a practice to making nice melodies and chord progressions. So please, if you know what I'm doing wrong, please tell me about it. So I can learn.

PS: Wow, the quality was bad. It sounds much better in Logic. Meh, I probably messed something up with the bouncing. Doesn't matter too much for this time.

[Lavender_Harmony]

Could you possible either render it out with something cleaner so both the chords and melody can be heard, or write out the chords in full, including any added tones to the root triads. I can't hear the chords clearly through the harsh sidechain compression

[LutariFan]

Could you possible either render it out with something cleaner so both the chords and melody can be heard, or write out the chords in full, including any added tones to the root triads. I can't hear the chords clearly through the harsh sidechain compression

Ah, sure.

The pad is actually not sidechained, just has high attack and only 3 polyphony so it starts over with a new chord without the old one being left. s

But just wait a bit then ^_^

Chords are: A,G,F,G - A,F,E,E

EDIT: It's changed now. There's only the pad, changed to 0 attack, and the pluck with 0 delay or sidechaining.

EDIT2: Ok, think I uploaded the wrong one -.- reuploading AGAIN xD

EDIT3: FINALLY done.

[LutariFan]

Bump :/

[v.lossity]

Well, for one thing, your chord progression isn't diationic. This means it does not match the notes of one particular key. This isn't necessarily bad, but for beginners in composition (myself included) I think its easier to stay diatonic. Here is something that helps me a lot (Im assuming you can read roman numerals, if not, google it):

I ii iii IV V vi (vii) I

okay so what does this mean? the uppercase roman numerals represent major chords. The lowercase numerals go with minor chords. I will come back to the one in parentheses later, its a different type of chord.

okay, so say you are in the key of C major, for simplicity's sake. This means only the white keys on the keyboard. The I chord would be a C major chord (can be called the major 1st). The ii is for the minor second, D minor. iii is for E minor, IV is F major (major 4th) , V is G major, and vi is A minor. Make sense so far? Okay, so most of the time, songs (assuming they are in C major) will use these chords, and things work out pretty well.

I hope this is making sense so far. If not, think about it this way, my guitar teacher used this analogy with me, and it helped a ton. Think of a key as a bucket. It has certain notes in it. Most of the time, songs will pick notes only from one bucket at a time. Of course, people change keys sometimes, so they will occasionally switch to another bucket (but dont worry about that too much until you are comfortable working in just one). Most composers can come up with all kinds of wonderful things just working from the one bucket. It has structure in that it has rules. Certain notes arent included in the bucket, so listeners can know what to expect, but there are enough notes that composers can create a ton of variation.

So, what do you do here? If it was me, I would pick a key that has some of the chords that you have there, and adjust the ones that dont fit. If we wanted to keep things simple, with no sharps or flats (white keys only, hint hint) we could easily do it in C major. In C major, the major chords are C, F, and G (I, IV, V). This means you could leave the F and G major chords in your progression alone, they fit this key. The remaining chords that you used were A and E. In C major, the minor chords are D, E, and A (ii, iii, vi). What I would do here then, is change your A major and E major chords into A minor and E minor. This would require a single note change in each chord(In the A major, change the C# to a C, and in the E major, change the G# to a G). You will also have to change the melody to match these chords. Of course, changing these major chords to minor chords will change the "feel" of the groove, so its completely up to you if you like it or not. But its what I would do to start fixing it up pretty. (A major is another key you could fairly easily fit this into, you have the I and V of a major with your A and E chords, but I would advise sticking to C, its just much simpler for starters)

I cant tell for sure, but it seems that you might not have all the info about music theory that you need to get this sounding awesome. If thats not the case, sorry for wall of text and possibly incomprehensible explanations, its late over here. Or rather early xD Otherwise, I hope this is helpful

[LutariFan]

It was very helpful Thank you.

And, I tried to make this in A minor, but I'll try changing it around so it fits C major more

[v.lossity]

I should have realized this, as your song starts each progression with A >.< Just so you know though...A minor has all the same notes in it as C Major. The only difference is that instead of starting at C for the tonic, the scale starts at A. This is called the relative minor. If you are curious about why they have the same collection of notes, I would suggest reading on wikipedia about modes and relative minors. Good luck!

[LutariFan]

Heh, I know that they have the same notes, I think it was one of the first things I learned about music theory, that C major and A minor only have white notes ^_^

[v.lossity]

Ok cool. You should put the full track up here when its done!

[LutariFan]

Ok cool. You should put the full track up here when its done!

Thanks, I will ^_^

It's actually a lot more developed than this, I just made this so that the chords and melody could be heard.

[Scherzando]

While we're discussing relative majors and minors, you may want to look up the difference between harmonic, melodic and natural minors, if you haven't already. For reference, a lot of modern songs written in minor keys are in fact in harmonic minor (for reference, A minor played ONLY with white keys is natural minor - the more commonly heard variation is harmonic minor).