Our first assignment: to invent a progression of 12-16 chords that are not related to functional harmony, which we'll later use to write pieces for piano and some other instrument.
It sounds simple, but I found it quite challenging. Most of the music I've played has been based on tonality. The last few years of theory classes have focused almost entirely on traditional harmony and voice leading. So now to be sent off to explore atonality... I felt a bit lost. No rules to follow - except to avoid the rules I know.
It took a lot of trial and error to come up with chords. When I went to the piano, my fingers kept finding chords they recognize (they're too well trained!), and my ear kept saying, "Ya, that sounds good!" So I had to really play around to find chords that sounded ok but couldn't be easily labelled, and to arrange them in a somehow logical way with a gradual increase then decrease in tension.
All my chords were approved when I played them in class. Chord 10 had the most tension, probably because it's widely spaced and uses the lower register of the piano. They found chords 7 and 12 nice - and when we looked closer, we found that 7 is similar to a V13 (but still acceptable!) and 12 is based on a stack of 5ths (interesting!). Other feedback: I used a wide range of the piano, which helped to vary the tension of the chords (good!).
I still might go back a tweak a few chords - there's a few that I don't particularly like. But overall I'm happy with what I came up with and the feedback I got in class.
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