a question about chord progression

[TANIA]

I've mostly played songs from fake books that have the melodies and chords in them. I started playing some praise songs by ear and now i'm trying to come up with my own chord progression. The Question is:
Should every melody note fit in the structure of the respective triad? (i'm not concerned about big fat chords at this point-Just simple triads).

[maxpesh]

No not every note, you see you can have a note that doesn't fit in unless it is a passing note to "pass" into the next chord. Hope this helps

[Sam CA]

Should every melody note fit in the structure of the respective triad? (i'm not concerned about big fat chords at this point-Just simple triads).

Not at all! Just like maxpesh said, not all notes are chord tones.
Even a melody note could be a "Passing Tone","neighboring Tone", "Escape Tone", ......etc . There's lots of possiblilities. It also depends to the style of kind of music you're dealing with. For example, if you're to analyze Bach's Fugue, you would mark D note as a "nonchord tone" in a C major chord, but you would mark that chord as a C9 chord in jazz. A note that is a chord tone in one style might be considered as a nonchord tone in another.

In your case, you try to start with triads. That's the best way to learn harmony. Once you felt comfortable , then you can start experimenting with other chords.

[TANIA]

Should every melody note fit in the structure of the respective triad? (i'm not concerned about big fat chords at this point-Just simple triads).

Not at all! Just like maxpesh said, not all notes are chord tones.
Even a melody note could be a "Passing Tone","neighboring Tone", "Escape Tone", ......etc . There's lots of possiblilities. It also depends to the style of kind of music you're dealing with. For example, if you're to analyze Bach's Fugue, you would mark D note as a "nonchord tone" in a C major chord, but you would mark that chord as a C9 chord in jazz. A note that is a chord tone in one style might be considered as a nonchord tone in another.

In your case, you try to start with triads. That's the best way to learn harmony. Once you felt comfortable , then you can start experimenting with other chords.

I bought a theory book. It's called " Music in theory and practice" by Benward .. I studied a few chapters. I found the page that's talking about chord tones and Non-chord tones. It has all the categories that you mentioned, but it doesn't say when/how/why should a note be called a passing tone, whereas the same note in the same song little bit later is a chord tone and therefore it has a different chord assigned to it.

[Sam CA]

I bought a theory book. It's called " Music in theory and practice" by Benward .. I studied a few chapters. I found the page that's talking about chord tones and Non-chord tones. It has all the categories that you mentioned, but it doesn't say when/how/why should a note be called a passing tone, whereas the same note in the same song little bit later is a chord tone and therefore it has a different chord assigned to it.

That's one of the most popular theory books!!! It's been taught in most music schools. It could get real deep some times, so i would recommand you to study it with a teacher. Yes, the same note in the same song can have a different chord at any moment. you shouldn't look at every single chord as an independent element. All chords are influenced by their neighbors meaning the same chord for the same note might not sound good in some instances because of what's coming next...etc.