While this may seem like a new way of thinking, it's actually the opposite. It's been around a lot longer than chord charts.

What's the problem with vertical thinking?

Well, depending on your goals, nothing. It's a great way to write.

But it's become so prevalent in popular musical genres, it's worth exploring a different approach. One that was used to create a lot of the music that has lasted for centuries - which I'm not sure will be true for much of the popular music today. I could be wrong....Rick Beato made me say that.

Potential Problems:

1. Looped Thinking

It's a common question - "how do I get unstuck from the 4-bar or 8-bar loop?"

The design of sequencers and DAWs makes it easy to see why this can happen.

We spend most of our time as producers and composers staring at a grid. A grid neatly divided into vertical groups of four. Four beats to a measure, four bars to a pattern, four patterns to a sequence.

From there, we're trained to think of chords as vertical blocks we can simply drag and drop into place. It can all start to feel a bit "paint-by-numbers" and repetitive.

        2. Harmonic Inconsistency

When we're thinking about chords vertically they can start to seem disconnected from one another - isolated. 

But no chord in and of itself is good or bad. It's all about their context; how they relate to each other. Unless it's ambient drone music and there's only one chord...I guess.

We usually don't think about what happens to each note in the chord as we move from one chord to the next.

We might have too many of the same notes shared between two chords. This "telegraphs" and can spoil the surprise of the second chord.

Or we might have two chords that are in two different harmonic languages. Perhaps one chord follows a tertian (3rds) structure, and the next chord has a quartal (4ths) structure. This breaks the harmonic consistency of the progression. It's like starting a sentence in Spanish and then suddenly switching to French.

If that's our intention - cool. But usually the issues arise because we aren't even aware of it. We're just dropping random chords onto a grid that might sound good when isolated, but don't belong in the same musical sentence.

If this concept is new to you, I'm planning a course that goes deeper into this important subject: harmony

If enough of you sign up for THIS WAITLIST, I'll build it for you and give you the first opportunity once it opens.

So what's the solution?

The simplest way to start thinking linearly or horizontally is to use fewer notes.

Strip it down to two parts - two notes at a time.

There's less to think about. There are fewer distractions. And, you must make those two parts independent and strong.

Earlier this week, I was working with one of my coaching clients on an analysis of the Bach C Major Prelude. We took special note that if we stacked all those arpeggios into blocked chords and then just played the outer parts, it still worked. There was still a clear melodic phrase that had its own shape and structure.

I'm certainly not comparing it to Bach, but I did this in my track, "Turning." I started with a bed of textures. But, I was struggling to find a progression I liked. So, I decided to improvise with just two notes at a time.

I focused on how they interacted and where they went linearly. This forced me to think about the shape of the phrases rather than blocked vertical triads.

This was a recorded improvisation, so there's one place where I feel like the parts are weak. It's because this is the only place I've doubled - I have the same note in both parts, so I've effectively eliminated a part.