In harmony: key or the flow?

Question

I play ambient music and my approach on creating chord lines is simple, just try to stick on the key and if I want to change the key then make it subtle. But today I tried to create harmony lines which doesn't have a center key, just using enharmonic chords. For example Chords: D -> F#m -> A -> C#m -> C# Notes: DF#A -> F#AC# -> AC#E -> C#EG# -> C#FG#...And so on, it can be written forever. It sound good in my ambient context at least, because my role is to create space and not to show way (from A to B), but I want to know if I do something which has a name or theory behind it. Can music be written not by functionality (for instance: I-IV-V), but only just the motion of the notes (as my line)?

Answer 1

This is a fantastic question! What you are exploring here is a common approach in modern music ranging from Herbie Hancock to Schoenberg.

Short answer: yes and yes! Music can absolutely be written "non-functionally." In fact, many some schools of composers will argue that even "tonal" music is a misleading idea (see Ernst Toch). All of the chords you mentioned share at least one "common tone." This helps the ear to sort of hold on to something while moving in a new direction.

Again, this exists in music from Bach to the Beatles to modern day ambient music. I encourage you to explore it more!