Hi, I'm Pedro. Have you ever struggled to
create ambient chords that truly capture an ethereal and
atmospheric vibe? Maybe you felt stuck in
traditional progressions, or your voicings feel too
mechanical or uninspired. In today's video, I'll share
four key techniques to help you craft ambient harmonies that
feel expensive and emotional. We'll explore different chord
voicings and how to connect them, creating chord extensions,
the use of pedal notes, and ways to add subtle movements to your
chords. If this sounds interesting to
you, then let's get into it. I'm just going to say this right
out of the gate. You need to know how the
different chords sound so that when you hear them, at least you
have a good feel for what you are hearing in your head now.
Each chord might make you feel in a certain way or take you to
a certain place, but you also have to consider the harmonic
context in which it lives. This means paying attention to
how a chord sequence makes you feel, or how going from chord A
to B moved you, not just a specific chord.
So pay attention to that. To gain more experience,
definitely look at what's happening in the music you like,
the moments that move you, and then make sense of what's
happening. What chords are they using?
Are those extended chords? How are they voiced?
And that brings us to the next section.
You can have nice ambient harmony with chords that are not
complicated, like with simple triads and 7th chords,
especially if they are used thoughtfully.
And the first thing we're going to look at is how to put down
the notes of such chords. In other words, how are you
going to voice your chords? You'll be hearing the same 2
chords in close and open voicing throughout the different
registers in this example. The.
Notice how different it is if you choose different chord
voicings and the effect it has throughout the register.
This too has an emotional weight that you should consider because
the way you choose to voice your chords effects their resonance
which will then be carried throughout the music.
Needless to say, you need to let the chords ring out using long
sustained sounds. This means that we are not
looking at fast changing chords. Let them breathe, use some delay
reverb to enhance the sense of space and sustain like this.
As you might have noticed, there were no big jumps from the notes
of one chord to the other. What I did was to arrange the
notes of the next chord in a way that the notes of the previous
chord would be either maintained because they were sharing a
common note, or would move in the smallest interval possible,
a stepwise movement. This will definitely make your
chord succession sound smoother, so the least you move your
notes, the smoother the transition will be.
We will be making use of this aspect in the following section.
We are going to look at two ways to add chord extensions to your
ambient chords. One is by hinging and the other
is by thinking of anticipations or suspensions as a way to help
us connect with the following chord.
So what is hinging? It consists of simply moving one
of the notes of a chord up or down in stepwise movement.
As an example, let's say you have AC major 7th chord with the
notes C, e.g., and B. And let's keep the bass in C and
if you hinge C to D, now you have AC major 9 chords.
And if you now do the same with B to A, now you have AC-69
chord. This is a way of adding extended
notes to your chords. But the main reason why we are
looking at this is because it is a nice way of connecting chords
through voice movement. Let's hear this technique used
in a chord progression. This time I chose not to change
the base notes and just focus on the upper harmonic structure,
but you definitely can as a way to prepare a smoother movement
to the next chord. The other way of creating chord
extensions that we are going to look at is by using anticipation
and suspension. Arguably, in a way this can be
seen as a form of hinging, as you will see.
As far as anticipations go, it is when you introduce a note of
the next chord in the preceding chords.
It's like adding a common note with the next chord if there
isn't 1 already. And suspension is where you
extend the note from the previous chord to the next and
then resolve it to a note of the arrival chord.
All in all, these are just a couple of suggestions for adding
extended notes to your chords. Don't be afraid to use
dissonances and add extra notes to the simple chords you started
out with, as these can add more emotional depth to your music.
Incidentally, now that we have created these new chords, why
not try to figure out a way to use those?
Since we are only working with chord colors and are not worried
about functionality, I'm going to encourage you to play around
with the order in which you play the chords you came up with,
like in this example. Another way of connecting chords
and explore different harmonic landscapes and vibes is by using
pedal notes. It is a sustained note that
stays constant while chords change around it.
This is a great solution if your chords feel disconnected or lack
emotional depth. And mind you that you can place
pedal notes on the bottom, mid or top of the chord.
In the next examples, you will first hear the chord succession
we already used, and then how using this technique can affect
the harmonic color and mood of that chord progression.
The first example of pedal note is with a pedal note on the
bass, Now the same but with the
hanging note on the top. And finally, the pedal notes in
the middle register. I only adjusted the chord
voicings in this last example to carve space for the two pedal
notes I ended up using. Overall, pedal notes create the
thread that tie everything together, even when some
dissonances occur. But again, don't shy away from
letting the pedal notes clash with the chords.
It often resolves beautifully and adds tension that feels
naturally in ambient music. And finally, let's add subtle
textures to keep your ambient chords evolving over time.
If your chords feel stagnant, blocky, or rigid, these ideas
can add life and expression to them.
As you may have noticed here and there, I've used some percussion
loops that definitely help the slow chord progressions move
forward. And with that said, let's get
into other things that you may consider doing.
So the first one is to arpeggiate slowly.
Instead of playing the chord all at once, you can roll through
the notes and find ways of presenting it in a different
order. You can also use small melodic
fragments where you can add very short and slow moving melodies
to enhance the overall harmonic colors and establish character.
Hinging. We've already went through this
one. Just move or replace the 3rd or
the 5th of a chord to a second, 4th or 6th to create an airy,
unresolved feel. That way you can also explore
the melodic movements between chords.
And adding extra layers for depth and texture.
Try to combine different types of sounds, use arpeggiators, do
swells in different instruments or use non musical soundscapes
underneath your harmonies. These subtle variations can make
even static harmonies feel alive and evolving.
Perfect for creating immersive soundscapes.
And by the way, feel free to combine them.
So there you have it, 4 approaches for you to consider
while creating ambient and atmospheric chords.
Try these techniques in your compositions and see how they
add depth and emotion to your music.
If you enjoyed this video, don't forget to like subscribe and let
me know in the comments how you approach create ambient
harmonies. As always, check the links in
the description and the Beyond Music Theory blog where you'll
find lots of useful information, courses, online lessons and the
Beyond Music Theory book. That's it for today.
Thank you and until next time.