Hey, do these harmonies sound weird? I want them to sound really beautiful. Sometimes when I listen to them I think it is beautiful, but sometimes I think it sounds like crap. Also I realize that during the B-dominant harmony there are those non-chord tones that are a fourth apart but sometimes that still sounds okay, if I'm not mistaken?

http://www.4shared.com/file/72963575/4fba3160/Experiments.html

http://www.4shared.com/file/72963767/bb2bb563/Experiments.html

I listened only to the first one. If you consider discordant sounds "beautiful" then you have accomplished what you set out to have. Personally, I do not find them "beautiful."

Ed

I, too, only listened to the first one - can you save these in a different format that's a bit smaller - it took a while for me to download 11+ MB for only about a half-minute's worth of music...

Anyway, I don't think they sound bad at all - in fact it seems like an interesting harmonic scheme to me.

Bear in mind that there's no correct answer to this - everyone has different levels of comfort with dissonance. Personally I don't think it sounds all that dissonant at all, but that's just me - I started out as a comp major at IU, so I'm pretty used to hearing some crazy dissonant works.

Well, I was trying to make it really romantic, which I think means using dissonance moreso than earlier styles but not actually sounding "dissonant". I wanted everything to be smooth but also have the highest voice leaping even when there is modulation

I'm not really sure what you're asking. None of your harmonies are weird at all, just major and minor chords decorated with various non-harmonic tones.

The only weird thing is the progression:

E Major - F# minor - E7 - G# minor in second inversion with no 3rd, sort of - F#7 - B7 - and the last two chords don't seem to really fit any good description

In other words, you're handling the harmonies fine. Many romantic composers do very similar things (Brahms, Chopin, etc...)

What's odd is the context, and several of your chords sound odd because they are approached or resolve in very unfamiliar ways.