Composing A Bossa Nova – mDecks Music
Published: 2025-10-04
backdoor progressions
functional harmony
jazz harmony
mapping tonal harmony pro
tritone substitution
A practical composition lesson that shows how to turn a short motif into a full bossa nova tune using motivic development, harmonic choices, and bass-line movement.
Learn a structured approach to composing a bossa nova: extend a three-note motif into longer phrases, plan form, and craft A and B sections with grammatical phrase-building. The lesson emphasizes Latin harmonic devices — Dorian modal vamps, diminished approach chords, tritone substitutions, and chromatic bass descents — and demonstrates how common tones and half-step bass movement create inevitability. Includes techniques like octave displacement, modulation for interest, and strategies to reinterpret single notes with different chord functions to generate rich progressions.
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