My guitar teacher always said that if you have the melody, you have the chords. He always pushed me to learn “jazz chords” partly so I could do voice leading.
Since then I’ve started playing the piano and it’s way easier to match chords and inversions to melodies on a keyboard. Oddly I hadn’t put the two ideas together until now. I see a lot of fun reworking of ideas in the near future.
And @cgb I really like that Aalto piece you posted.
I have nothing to add at the moment but just wanted to say this is a great topic and very relevant to me right now!
Well, I do know how to deconsturct a chord, and how to establish what key a given song happens to be in… But I don’t have much use for those skills in my own music. Obviously it comes handy when making music for other people, since their stuff is usually all about those western melodies and harmonies…
But for my own stuff? I’d have to reach Herbie Hancock tier mastery before I could come up with stuff I’d find interesting to listen to. I’ve heard pretty much everything the western music tradition has to offer when it comes to this stuff, Jazz, classical, pop, you name it… and most of it doesn’t really inspire me. I’d much rather listen to an oldskool jungle track where the donk samples are out of key against the bassline, or avant-garde music which goes beyond the 12TET tonalities. Or even arabic maqam scale based stuff…
I have always had a good memory for melody. Since I was a kid, if I heard a melody, I could remember it immediately, and could even suzuki-method my way through playing said melody on a keyboard give a bit of time. So I intuitively “get” some things about what notes go with what… Problem has always been, I am sure there is a way to visualize keys and scales in a way that would make it all “click” for me… I just haven’t found it yet. And again, even if using basic scales and chords became more fluent for me, I dont know if it’d help me reach what I’m looking for, which leans more towards exotic tonalities/tunings.
Like, listen to this example - this sort of tonalities/voicings really inspire me - tell me what theory teaches this stuff?
So in that sense, this voice leading sounds more intuitive to me than just memorizing chords and their inversions
It is a chicken and egg problem. When was learning theory and not learning theory not a problem?
There is one simple way to find out and that is by writing and finishing songs. Learn about the theory as you encounter obstacles on this journey. Prefer to start composing with voice leading? Good. Of course, composing a melody requires practice, too. There is no shortcut.
After reading your post, I’m positive that WA Mathieu’s book Harmonic Experience is for you. A few keywords : Indian Sargam, just intonation, extended 5-limit lattice of 12 notes, functional commas. The journey is quite unique and both enlightening and rewarding.
I’ve found learning theory a fun journey and trying out new tricks is like acquiring new gear. Like having a new toy to play with. And it’s free! Also worth separating knowledge of theory to enhance your own music from virtuosity as a player.
Chord melody playing on guitar is about as tricky as it gets.
You can get the impression from all these wizard kids these days that have insane skills that combining the two is easy on the guitar, the bar has been raised so much in recent years.
But I consider myself a fairly accomplished guitar player, and concepts that you need to understand have under your fingertips on the guitar are just readily available on the piano. While the same concepts still require some mental gymnastics in my brain to this day.
Of course, that has something to do with me and my efforts as well 
Interesting vido and discussion. But I’m not entirely sure what moving by a step really implies.
Does this trick also work by changing notes half a step and going in opposite directions?
Appreciate the book suggestion! I’ll give it a read, thanks.
Reading this just now, and I found a perfect description of my personal harmonic agendas from the first chapter:
“The question cannot help but arise, “Don’t some people get music naturally, without all of the discipline and commitment and analysis?” The answer is yes, some people do and so do you. We all do to some degree. Every action is partly intuitive and partly rational; the proportions change from action to action and from individual to individual. No one is entirely analytical in the process of learning music, and no one is entirely intuitive (although I’ve seen some serious contenders at both extremes). There is even a part of the psyche that actively seeks to not know. It wants sensual saturation and intuitive wholeness, the pure being of childhood, the animal self.”
That last bit I bolded, that’s what I want, 100%, 24/7.
Thanks again for this book tip!
In melody, step wise movement is not larger than 4 semitones (major third). What he probably suggested in the video though looks more like not larger than 2 semitones (second).
He demonstrated moving in opposite directions by moving from the chord Db to the chord A:
It is for the last note (Db) that he did not respect his first rule, that is keeping one note in common or constant. Unfortunately, when Db changes enharmonically to C#, the note does change.
His trick still works because in equal tempered tuning Db and C# sound the same. So I guess what he actually meant to say with his first rule was to keep one tone in common.
Currently reading Harmonic Experience. This stuff gets complicated fast! I need to start writing my progressions down while noodling with it on piano for sure.
Last night I even dreamt of harmony, it was quite transcendental experience. I had this euphoric feeling coming and going when the notes hit perfectly together.
Fairly simple jazz theory I would say. Isn’t it just some modal stuff with some outside stuff for tension?
Is this kind of composition so difficult to make that it needs a theory of pitches? Not a comment on whether it is good or bad—like Sean booth says there’s plenty of good music whose creation doesn’t require a lot of effort. A percussion track with a simplistic random sounding woodwind sequence repeated without variation and some incongruous vocal samples with limited pitch information layered as a collage. This is about 20 mins work for anyone with a decent size and fairly varied sample library.
By contrast, those resources won’t get you All I Do or Yellow Brick Road.
Back on topic.
Was listening to Robert Schumann’s wonderful Piano Quintet in E-flat major Op. 44 of 1842, and in it the cello part is making these 7th jumps, but in fact it’s just a series of downward steps, moved up an octave. Steps up or down moved an octave up or down becomes 7ths and 9ths.
So you dont digg DJ Nigga Fox. Thats cool. He’s one of my current fave artists to be honest, I got almost all of his releases on vinyl.
All I do is aight, but not listening to that yellow brick road
Doesn’t matter whether I like it or not. The point is about gathering the right tools for the job.
Have any of you tried the above method, starting with a melody/note and then creating “free” harmonies by adding melodies/notes instead of working within fixed chord progressions? If so, could you post the results?
I like to think of the above as an additional tool rather than as the only tool. Thank you for presenting it 
Btw what do you mean by “pop trap” ? There are indeed a few chord progressions in the tonal realm that tend to be used far more often than others. Perhaps you’re alluding to music that lacks an exploration component?
sure, i always see such things as another route to try out and never as “the only way”. I posted one very experimental example, this should make clear what i mean by getting away from the pop trap 
i did not only add “random” harmonies, but also detuned them = microtonality
Thanks for this post and all the reactions. I needed this.
Listen to Arnold Schoenberg and Thelonious Monk if you’re looking for inspiration to break out of your I-IV-V-I routine