The last of 25 chapters. You now have what you need to read pop harmony and write melodies over it. This chapter reviews what stuck and points at what comes next.
If you read this far while actually playing the examples, you are no longer in the state of "I can't write because I don't know the terms". Here is what you picked up.
What you now have
- Note names, scales, and where bright and dark come from (part one)
- How chords are built and which seven live inside a key (part two)
- What chords do, and why the standard progressions are standard (part three)
- How a melody should move over chords (part four)
- Odd meters, and what lies outside this theory (part five)
Worth learning next
- Rhythm in more depth — syncopation, swing, polyrhythm
- Arrangement — distributing one melody across instruments. More ears and experience than theory
- Mixing — balancing level and frequency. It decides whether your song sounds finished
- Modes — Dorian, Lydian and the rest. Colours outside major and minor
- Extended chords — 9ths, 11ths, 13ths. A continuation of chapter ten
- Reading and writing notation — not required, but useful when handing music to other people
The practice that beats theory
This has been a series about theory, but the thing that improves you fastest is the number of times you write something. Ten eight-bar fragments will teach you more than one perfectly polished song. Generate over different progressions in ChordMelo, keep the ones you like as MIDI, and the fragments accumulate.
- A melody over the royal road
F | G | Em | Am
That is the end of the series. Theory is something you add when you need it, not something to finish in advance. This stays here as a place to come back to. Go and put what you make out into the world.
One more time, over a progression you like. You are listening with a different ear than you were in chapter one.
Generate over the royal roadThe basics are done. The next stage is volume — write a lot. More theory can wait until you need it.