I know this is a Trumpet forum, but im curious if anyone here has any exprience writing horn sections? I've done a lot of research on this topic recently but I still don't really ever like the result. I see some sources say to have the horn section play chord tones, some sources say stick to unison/octaves, some say do quartal voicings, some say add in extensions of the chord. I guess its a case by case basis, I feel like for big horn melodys, and stabs for Disco/Funk octaves and unison are probably the best way to go, but when it comes to voicing a horn harmony, I always end up going to chatgpt to ask for advice on which notes to have the horns play. Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this but just thought maybe some people here might have some widsom to share.

Im no where near as advanced as others in this community, but I was just thinking today about how rare both II△7 & III△7 chords are in modern music, or if they are even used at all.

Lets look at a II△7

For a major 7th chord to be diatonically possible on a note that is a major 2nd above the tonic, the scale would have to have 2 notes immediately stacked above the root. So taking the C Major scale for simplicity and flattening certain scale degrees to include the notes needed to build a Dmaj7:

C, Db, Ebb, F, Gb, A, B. This would give us the notes to create Dmaj7, but Starting on Ebb(D) and stacking 3rds you end up with D7, You'd have to skip 2 scale degrees (B, C) so the only way a Major7 chord could ever exist diatonically would have to be a special 14 note scale that spans 2 octaves. am I wrong?

Now III△7

A III△7 chord is actually a lot simpler, because the only changes made to the Ionian mode would be sharpening the 2 & 5 to include D#(7) & G#(3). and then you could diatonically build a III△7 chord.

The only reason I was really thinking of this in the first place is because when it comes to 2 chords in modern music, I mostly see them in the form of a ii, bII, or ii° or some extended verision of those. Same deal for 3 chords, mostly see them as iii, bIII, iii° or bIII+ in the common modes. I could be wrong, so take everything I say with a grain of salt as I said im not as advanced as others here, just thought it was an interesting thing to look in to for myself.

Anyone have any thoughts on this topic?

If you have a song like in my case, A - Bm - G - F#m. All the notes fit diatonically into D Major (ionian) but the D chord is not used? or does should I instead label it B Minor even though B isnt used either? Or should I instead call this progression A Major with a bVI borrowed from the parallel minor? Or maybe G with Lydian mode chords?

I wonder how hard it is to learn exactly what a keyboard player is playing, I hear songs sometimes and I just wonder how the key player has voiced the chords, whether its rootless or not, because I guess a key player playing a Em over a bass players C note is just percieved as a Cmaj7 chord, I wonder if anyone can listen to a song though and hear "the song plays a Dm9 but the guy on rhodes is playing a Fmaj7" I think I really need to start ear training

Everyone just says "Listen to the music, when does it feel at rest?" but its hard for me to tell because I'll hear one chord and think "okay, this feels like its at rest I think" and then ill hear another chord and think "wait no this sounds at rest too". This is something I struggle with, unless there is such an obvious ii-V-I type of cadence I really have trouble knowing what key a song is in. Is there some type of ear training I can do to be able to know exactly when a song is a rest and what the tonal center of a song is?

I was listening to this song for example and its main progression is:

Emaj7 - Emaj7 - C#min7 - G#min7 - F#min7 - G#min7

So I look at this and think it could be in the key of E and just be a I - vi - iii - ii - iii

but the Emaj7 doesn't really feel like its "Home" to me it feels like it wants to go somehwere.

the Hook goes

Emaj7 - Emaj7 - C#min7 - G#min7 - A - B - C#min7 - G#min7 - A - B...(more bouncing around the vi, iii, IV & V assuming this is in the key of E)

And here G#min7 feels pretty at ease to me, but so does C#min7.

So would this song be in the Key of E, since the iii & vi are kind of like the "cousins" of E even if the Emaj7 itself doesnt have the same satisfying feeling of stability (to me) and the B constantly resolves to C#min7 like a backdoor resolution rather than ever dropping a fifth to the E?

I up until a few days ago could play decently only strumming down with my hand, no pick, but I recently finally started trying to force myself to use a pick and for some reason such a small change as just strumming with a pick has my brain short circuiting and Ill blank out playing songs I know like the back of my hand, I also wanted to grab a pick so I can do that chucking technique where you hit the strings while your palm is resting on them for that percussive muted sound, either way I wish I just used the pick from the start, and one thing that stresses me out is how many different strumming pattern there is, every song seems to have a different pattern, whats the least amount of strumming patterns to learn that you can get away with?

I just binged the entire season in 3 days, I seriously loved that season so I was suprised to see a lot of bashing on it when I came here. I liked the casting, i liked the atmosphere of the show with the lighting or colour grading or whatever, and I just pretty much enjoyed the show in general. I also felt really bad for ashley most of the time tbh, but i thought all the actors did good, Oscar Isaac has moved up the rankings in my book, but that was one of those shows i got invested in after I finished it I was like "damn what now". id say the show went 2/2 so far, I also thought after i watched the show that it will pick up awards but seeing lots of people here bashing it now im not so sure maybe im the odd one out who enjoyed it

I've been using FL for almost a decade, but I recently swapped to Ableton, but Ableton is just so annoying to use, I like the track delay thats built in, but the Piano Roll in Ableton is an ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE, seriously, anyone who has used both FL and Abletons piano roll knows what I'm talking about, I feel like Ableton is purposefully more complicated then it needs to be. The reason I swapped to Ableton is honestly because I liked how easy it was to do time corrections, FL you have to go into NewTime to fix a bass or guitar performance, Ableton you just double click the clip and can start fixing the timing, and Ableton also has track delay so you can nudge track timings with more percision, FL Studio even setting the snap to "None" you cant get as percise as you can in ableton, in FL youd have to load up a time delay plugin to get a ms offset or nudge it in the playlist, in ableton I like how each track has a built in track delay to offset a track early or late by however many ms you choose, seriously can FL Studio just implent these, Ableton is a nightmare for getting ideas down quickly and without having to click a bunch of different buttons or make sure a bunch of parameters are correctly set. sorry for the rant

I know like all the open chords, I know the main shapes people use (at least i think i do), I know the E & A strings very well so I know where to place a the root and what shapes to use, i know the minor pentatonic box in the one position, and i also know the triad shapes on the bottom 3 and 4 strings, I dont really like the way the triads sound on the rooted on the E & A string so I didnt really care to memorize those shapes, I also know music theory pretty well, but one thing i find im lacking is the ability to add little guitar phrases/licks to songs, so I feel like the next thing I should learn is how to play the pentatonic scale in more ways then just box 1 or whatever its called?

If I looked up a the chords to a song and lets say the first chord is a Cmaj7, does that mean every instrument including lead vocals and the entire band is playing some combo of C, E, G & B? every key being pressed, every string being strummed, every vocal harmony is all playing one of those 4 notes?

I noticed that for example a Cmin6/A is enharmonically the same as a Am7b5, I completely understand calling it a Cmin6/A in the context of like descending bassline or line cliche situation, but other than that does a Cmin6 with the 6th in the bass actually exist or should it technically just be called a Am7b5?

I understand notating chords as slash chords when its a simple inversion like C/E, C/G, A/E, etc. And I get using them so its easier to read and peform, but would it be better for me for my own personal learning to notate a F/G as a Gsus9 for example? so I can better understand what the chord is actually doing and how it fits in to the music?

I was listening to a podcast lastnight and they mentioned how in the olympics, teams can dress 7 D, and it made me think, what if the NHL allowed teams to dress 15 fowards & 8 D? If teams had 5 lines and 4 pairs to roll, would that impact the game negatively or positively, assuming of course the salary cap is raised even more to account for 5 extra contracts. What yall think?

I was just sitting here and realized X doesnt actually contribute any unique sound, look at words like Box, Fox or Aux. the X sounds like "Kss". Look at Exist, X sounds like "Ghz". Queen and Quick can all be spelt using a K, Kween, Kwick, Every other letter actually has a pronounciation:

A: Ahh
B: Bee
C: Cuh
D: Duh
E: Eee
F: Fuh
G: Guh
H: Huh
I: ihh
J: Juh
K: Kuh (pretty simular to C though I will say)
L: Luh
M: Muh
N: Nuh
O: Ohh
P: Puh
Q: ??? any word I can think of Id spell with a K
R: Ruh
S: See
T: Tuh
U: Uh
V: Vuh
W: Wuh
X: ? I dont even know what sound X makes
Z: Zee

idk, just thought id share, X makes words look satisfying complete and cool though, so maybe thats one reason to keep it, but it doesnt really add anything new, am i wrong?

In the key of D Major, should a G/E be viewed as a G6 in third inversion or viewed as a Emin7. Because the song I'm looking at has a chord written as G/E? so I wonder why not just write Emin7 sinces it could just be viewed as the ii chord? just curious

I really like to breakdown my favourite songs, figure out the keys and analyze the chord progressions. I have this google document where I do this and each mode has its own colour. I write out the chord progression of a song in roman numerals and depending on what key it is I colour all the diatonic chords in the home key and use the colours of the other modes on chords that are borrowed from them, I also have a colour assigned to Tritone substitutions and Secondary Dominants, sometimes I'm scratching my head at how to label certain chords that dont come from any of the common modes, arent tritone subs or secondary dominants. for example the song im analyzing currently is in C# Minor (i think so at least) and goes bVI-v-bII-i(Amaj7-F#min7-Dmaj7-C#min7) for the most part, I coloured the bVI, v & i red as I do with all Aeolian chords, and I coloured the bII dark blue, the colour I associate with Phrygian mode so I can instantly see where a chord comes from. but then later in the song a Ddim7 pops up which in the context of C# Minor is a bii°7, the context its used in is "bVI-v-bII-i-bii°7" and then it loops back to bVI. right now I just have it labelled as a chromatic passing chord, but I wonder if this is something I should fix and maybe go deeper into theory and include more modes because there is probably some weird diminished scale that a bii°7 diatonically belongs to, or is labelling it as a chromatic passing chord valid?

I am getting kind of annoyed with voice leading, I can re-arrange notes so that each note in a chord moves the smallest distance to the nearest note of the next chord, but I don't get the sound im after. And I wonder if good voice leading is just accepting defeat and changing a chord to a different chord or using a different type of the chord? Attached are screenshots of a G#min9 to C#min11 in basic root position and stacked vertically in order and how I tried to re-arrange the notes below.

This is the BEFORE, both chords in root position with the extensions stacked vertically in order (R,3,5,7,etc.) I left out the 9th in the second chord to keep both chords containing the same ammount of notes, so maybe that was my first mistake?

This is one option, probably not a very good one, 2 common tones but arranged like this it would be harder to play because instead of the B staying put, the B would have to jump up a 2nd to C# and the G# would jump a 3rd to B

This is probably the best way I could arrange the notes, 3 common tones, the D# jumping up a halfstep to E and the A# going up a 3rd to C#, but it still sounded weird to me

Actually I think this was the best sounding one I could come up with, but I feel like a Major 3rd is considered too big of a jump?

I don't know why, but I must be doing something wrong, this is just one example but often I find it difficult to make certain chords sound smooth going from one to another, maybe I need to utilize passing chords more to help bridge the gap between chords? or maybe I need to change the quality of chords to make voiceleading better, someone please help save me from this.

What are some of your favourite ways to voice a chord/spread out a chord voicing out over 2 hands. If you were to sit at a keyboard and play a chord in a way that sounds so lush and professional that it would get your creative juices flowing instantly and inspire you. I'm still pretty new to playing keyboard but I mostly just play the 1st chord as a root position and what I believe people call a tertian stack and then play the following chords in whichever inversion gives me the smoothest voice leading, but I'd like to know some other ways people start a song and play a chord