[Music] Chord Progressions

What are good ways to make chord progressions? If I ever get the time, maybe I'll get some scale and pick out notes and stuffs but for now, what are some quick and easy ways?

I know that the chord the key is in plus the major chords of the sub-dominant and dominant notes and a minor chord of the sub-mediant make a good progression. Stuffs like that, I need ;-;

My music-lingo may be off (probably is ;-; ) but it was the shortest way to say stuff in a non-confusing way, I think...

Well, a generic way is to modulate between chords.

I'm modulating in fifths for a piano song, it's simple but effective.

Modulate? ;-;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulation_%28music%29

Wikipedia is hard to understand. Can you dumb it down? ;-;

EDIT: I love you Halo. Is this a good example of Common Tone Modulation?

Wikipedia is hard to understand. Can you dumb it down? ;-;

Does this help?

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulation_(music)

Well, considering I created and put up an example of modulation, it's not really needed. But thanks anyways for the faulty link

Eh, I don't know why the close parenthesis didn't become part of the link.

chord progression is like you are lalala then you go wewewe but suddenly its a BAM BAM BAM.

Easy ways are not invented. You need to know how to change it and when. How in the since, not like lalalalalaweweweweBAMABAMBAMABAMABAMABA.

in some better ways and when is like...not in the very start/very end or something.~

http://rmrk.net/index.php/topic,16991.0.html


Check out lessons 7 and 8.
Maybe 6 if you want a refresher about chords.

Oh, thanks <3 I'll look into it soon.

EDIT: Okay, I get the whole diatonic stuffs and that's the more used one. But the away from diatonic progressions is hard... XDD

all the best chord progressions were already made.  So look them up and keep using them to make the GREATEST MELODY EVA!

my fav,,other than the unchained is the F,,G,,Em,,Am progression.

all the best chord progressions were already made.  So look them up and keep using them to make the GREATEST MELODY EVA!

my fav,,other than the unchained is the F,,G,,Em,,Am progression.

You can't say "all the best chord progressions were already made." There are an infinite amount of progressions, a lot of them being unusable and dissonant (which is not what I'm looking for >_> )

If you find out all the chord progressions to ever exist and still say it, sure. I just don't want any opinions in here. My method of a root chord, diatonic chords of its 4th and 5th, and a minor chord of the 6th are the "progressions...already made." That's great and all but it's too generic. I want something different.

All pop rock is pretty catchy. But, the problem is, they all pretty much sound the same. Maybe a bit different vocals, different key, but they're all power chords, which makes them limited. That's why I'm looking for different chord progressions.

a lot of them being unusable

Untrue. And you should learn to embrace dissonance; it's a beautiful thing.

I'm not good enough to work with dissonance. Plus, with some radical chord progressions like C, Cmaj7, then into D or something like that would be just like bleh for me, and a lot of people, to work with.

"A lot," too is a very general word to start with, so

all the best chord progressions were already made.  So look them up and keep using them to make the GREATEST MELODY EVA!

my fav,,other than the unchained is the F,,G,,Em,,Am progression.

...
...
No. Chord Progressions are not limited, like 5-10 or so. You can say that many good progressions have been made and he should see them (if thats what you meant) but you can't say that all of them have been made. ALso, using made up chord progressions ruins the point of self composing music.

..

There are an infinite amount of progressions, a lot of them being unusable and dissonant

I don't see how ;-; No chord progression in unusable unless you don't know how to use it ;-;

or watever

/zypher

Idk, some are really really really dissonant and it's wrong to say it's "unusable" since there probably is one way but still. I guess you can say "a lot" are really hard to use.

I agree with Moo. There are a few progressions that are really, really difficult to use because they sound too dissonant.



Unless you're writing 12 tone or something...
...then it's acceptable.

Philip Glass can use them

lol minimalism

His Einstein on the Beach is just triads played over and over again. He's not really the person I'd bring into an argument about dissonance.

He does a lot of 12 tone stuff. Well, not a lot, but more than he should.

...I don't like Philip Glass

It's okay Halo, one day we'll write something to make you like 12 tones... and Philip Glass.

I don't necessarily have anything against 12 tone pieces, just Glass. Most of his works are 4 or 8 measures repeated over and over and then another 4 measures repeated over and over. Then you go back to the first part and do it again. Some of his movie scores are ok and are actually closer to traditional movie music, but a bit more dissonant.

And lol at his minimalist stuff. If I had known there was money to be made in playing the same few chords over and over then I wouldn't have bothered trying so hard to write complex music

If you want 12 tone that is more bearable, check out Anton Webern, or Alban Berg.
Schoenberg is the father of 12 tone, and those are his two 'students.' But Schoenberg's music is really hard to listen to. Some of Berg and Webern's stuff is actually kinda neat. Some of it.

Like Berg's Violin Concerto, or Webern's Concerto for 9 Instruments.

Those are some pretty sweet pieces.

I will find them!

I don't really get how 12 tone sounds good Or is it more of a musical marvel ?_?

I think most of it sounds like crap, but since I've taken an entire semester in music school about modern music, I can't help but know how to appreciate it.

Teach me how to appreciate. XD I'm curious.

I'd have to teach you about set theory, and retrograde inversions, and hexachordal combinatoriality, and then go into serialism with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Milton Babbit, and

bah


No.

Teach you to appreciate...


Well, listen to some crappy song and then say "Oh, this is good"

Most people think 12 tone is just a bunch of random notes.

It's not. It's actually the most organized and NOT random music, well, ever.

If you haven't been taught set theory, you wouldn't know that.

And hence, you wouldn't appreciate 12 tone.

I remember something, like, 12 tone played backwards works out well, too.

Think flight of the Bumblebee

Most 12 tone pieces use only 1 row. That is, a 12 tone row. These are sometimes chosen at random, and sometime's they are not.
They're called 12 tone rows because they use all 12 pitches. In a certain order.

You must use these notes in that order throughout the entire piece. Sort of.

You can also go backwards, from the end to the beginning, which is called a retrograded row.
And you can transpose.
You can use chords, if the notes in the chords are the next however many pitches that are in your row.
You can also invert the row. Say the first not is C and the 2nd is G. The inverted row would start on C and go to A instead. The same interval, opposite direction. Repeat for 2nd and 3rd, then 3rd and 4th, and so on.
Inverted rows can also be retrograded, making retrograde inversion rows.

So there's 4 kinds of rows that are derived from the original, the original, the reversed (retrograde), the inverted, and the retrograded inverted.
And all 4 of these can be transposed, so that's 4 x 12 = 48 rows you can use, just from the one you chose in the first place.

You can play more than one row at once, obviously, and you can switch hands or instruments, depending on what you're writing for.

yeah I have a lot of trouble writing in 12 tone but i'd like to be able to. as for chord progressions I'm a fan of taking well-known ones and altering them or making them sound interesting. I'm starting to stray from that though, and picking up piano again is making that a lot easier for me, haha.

all the best chord progressions were already made.  So look them up and keep using them to make the GREATEST MELODY EVA!

my fav,,other than the unchained is the F,,G,,Em,,Am progression.

I played this on guitar and lol'd

triple post for example of what I mean by altering common progressions~

vi -> *7/vi -> IV -> iv

or in minor mode:
i -> vii* -> VI -> vi



I still think that's a pretty common progression, but, whatever.

Yeah, just look at the tab I made about that stuff, that I linked to in this thread ... and use it, lol.


edit: WAIT. I see what you're saying. Sorry, I'm tired.
Yeah, commonly that progression would just be, like, vi -> V -> IV -> IV, but you spiced it up etc...etc... time for bed...

yeah i'm not good at writing too far from what sounds "catchy." I mean, I could if I really wanted to, but it makes me feel uncomfortable.