Tension & Release

[00:00:00]When I think about creating chord progressions and some of the the elements of what makes a good and tasteful chord progression, one of the things is tension and release. And I would define tension and release as this concept of push and pull. It's the thing that allows the progression to move forward. Tension is essentially the the thing that creates some instability or it creates a little bit of dissonance in your music and it causes the listener to be, you know, it creates this open loop in their ear. It's like, oh, like there's some tension in this music like naturally to the listener. They want that chord or that that phrase to resolve to something that's a little bit more stable. And that leads me to release. Release is more like the resolution. It provides the stability to your music. So when you have this push and pull in your chord progressions, it creates it creates this propelling motion in your in your music. It allows you to move forward. Uh I could have something like so those first two chords pretty stable and then we get to this third chord creates a little bit of tension. It creates a little bit of instability in what I'm doing.

[00:01:22]Before that, I had had stable chords, but this tension, it makes the music a little bit more interesting because now, you know, it's not everything is stable. I'm providing a little bit of instability, but naturally in the progression, I'm going to want to provide that release to the music. I don't want to just keep things in this very unstable state, right? It's like to the listener. The listener wants the music to eventually resolve.

[00:01:59]So there's that release.

[00:02:02]Release tension release.

[00:02:18]release.

[00:02:20]If you want to create original chord progressions that sound like you, join my community progression lab. You get one new progression and one insight every day for 30 days, plus a place to post your playing, get feedback, and be around other pianists that are after the same goal. First week's free. Links in the description. When you hear this chord right here, this is a G dominant 7 sharp 5. One of the reasons why, well, this chord is very unstable. And one of the reasons why is because of this trionee that's added in the chord. The trionee, this trionee interval right here. Naturally, it wants to resolve.

[00:03:00]Those two notes want to go to those two notes.

[00:03:06]So when you have those that interval in your in your chords, it creates that's one thing that is like a giveaway like oh that is a pretty unstable chord.

[00:03:19]So when I play this chord there's some tension and then if I play this this minor chord that provides that release tension release.

[00:03:33]I guess I should have said on that last on that last example with this chord right here, that interval right there, right here in that third chord that provides that instability. It provides that tension.

[00:03:49]Me personally, one of the things that I do, I'm just listening. I'm just listening to what I'm playing.

[00:03:59]I'm just listening to what I'm playing and I'm just I'm just listening to how it feels.

[00:04:05]Like, does this feel does this feel stable or does this feel like there's some some instability to it? And sometimes it's just based off of how I feel. I'm not really all always thinking about like, okay, what is the theory telling me? I'm just really expecting it from some natural point of view. I hope this was helpful. Thanks for watching.

[00:04:24]I'll see you in the next one. Peace.