Trying your luck vs actual technical knowledge

A beginner type question here. I've been learning how to make some electronic music for a year or two, and more regularly working in the last few months. I have a midi keyboard and as well as just screwing around and finding nice melodies etc, I've lately been trying to teach myself chords. I played piano as a kid and I have some good books explaining stuff. What I don't quite understand is, is there a logical/theoretical or a musical reasoning for which types of chords go well together?

I feel like I've read this book detailing loads of chords and tried out various ones but now the increased knowledge leaves me boggled a bit. I know there is obviously a major element of my own will and what I feel sounds well here, but I guess if there's a more theoretical side to this then that'd be interesting.

Joe Meek: "If it sounds right, it is right"

Composition rules can get you into the ballpark, but it's often breaking these rules that throws up the interesting stuff.

is there a logical/theoretical or a musical reasoning for which types of chords go well together?

this is what "music theory" is.

it's all pretty boring. just buy more pedals

My current way of approaching this is to (on the one hand) use some new bit of music theory in every song I write, whether it's a chord, a key, a time signature, an instrument, or whatever. And on the other hand I'll use things I've come up with while messing around on the keyboard, just leaving things to chance, and improvising.

music theory books can be pretty dry, but some are geared towards practical applications for musicians. searching amazon would be a good place to start.

chord chemistry is a good book for guitarists, I assume there are similar books for the keyboard.

What I don't quite understand is, is there a logical/theoretical or a musical reasoning for which types of chords go well together?

Some would say that the overtone series (a physical phenomenon which gives rise, after some fudging, to the major scale) provides a basis for music theory. Beyond that it's convention -- we hear things as "correct" because we're used to hearing them that way. Music theory in general is a post-hoc thing -- it tells you how things have been done in the past. Anyhow, it's really good stuff to understand. Check out the lessons at http://www.musictheory.net for a good intro.

Hey, LG -- one fun way to split the difference might be to play with this plug-in called ChordSpace:

http://www.chordspace.com/ChordSpaceindex.htm

^ If you click over you'll see the display on the front page -- you set the key you're in, and there's a map of all the chords in it, by interval, with different added tones and diminished tones and whatnot ... press one, and it'll output the MIDI notes for the chord.

It'd probably be handy for you on a whole bunch of levels: it's a good shortcut for finding the chord you're looking for when your own knowledge isn't turning it up, you can play around with it and come up with chord sequences your own playing wouldn't have revealed, and playing around with it would probably teach you stuff about how chords go together.

thanks a lot everyone, been enjoying trying to formalise my ableton screwing around after about a year or two, finally feel ready to actually start doing tutorials and learning stuff rather than just goofing about.