And finally, here’s the last part I’d like to discuss before jumping into it. Understanding the guide. To understand this guide and get the most from it, you’ll want to know a reasonable amount of music theory. There is a little vocabulary mixed in here, but knowing about modes and chord progressions is one of the primary skills you’ll need to make the most of this guide. You may still find some tips helpful without this, but that theory may be important to composition in general. If you find that your own theory knowledge is sufficient, your next task is to understand what I’m saying. I’ll admit that in my explanations I like to use analogies to help get a point across and they may not ‘click’ for everyone so I apologize in advance. Furthermore, there is a major part of this guide where I basically made up a definition to name an aspect of fantasy compositions I couldn’t easily describe. I analysed the modes and the contexts they are used in to pair and attach emotions to them to help me figure out when to use them (and I also included the intervals that may be responsible for the corresponding emotion). Next I took these modes and analysed the chord progressions they are used in to help me figure out when to use them to create an overarching feeling, that reigned over the whole progression. To make it more simple to refer to, I called this a mood. These ‘moods’ are composed of chords that can be thrown together in any order to make a progression that makes a listener feel an overarching emotion. Of course there are some more obvious exceptions to the list of chords used; I attempt to make these clear in notes below the main essence or chunk of what I’m discussing.
When referring to chords in major or minor keys, I base the intervals off of a descending Ionian major scale (with exceptions like lydian as it uses a ♯ 4). That means capital Roman numerals are major chords and lowercase ones are minor. A chromatic scale (by interval) would be, “I, ♭II, II, ♭III, III, IV, ♭V, V, ♭VI, VI, ♭VII, VII.” Another thing I do is sometimes include (Major Notation) or (Minor Notation) off to the side. A major scale generally starts on “I” if you ask someone, but a minor scale may start on “vi” or “i” depending on who you ask. The minor scale starting on the “vi” is treating the relative major scale’s root as “I” which may make some concepts harder to grasp for some people like me. So I wrote both in the first chord progression example to help you get used to it and for the rest I use the “Moveable Do” concept. [Google it, if you’re not familiar.]
[Note: In this version of this guide I do not believe that I include the ‘pirate, ’ ‘wild-west,’ or ‘alien’ fantasy subgenres directly, but some of the moods and concepts can still be applied to composition for them with extra research and studying done for instrumentation and orchestration. This guide was made with classic fantasy themes in mind.]