More Essential Chord Progressions & The Chord Progression Formulas

The second part to .

This is a sequel tothe bestselling "Essential Chord Progressions" and "Advanced Chord Progressions" series. In that Apps, we defined some basic chord terminology, and described some of the fundamental problems songwriters encounter with regard to the creation of chord progressions.

In this App, we want to elaborate on many aspects of good chord progressions, including a focus on several categories:

1. More minor chord changes: In “Essential Chord Progressions” I included a short chapter that focused on chord progressions from minor keys. We want to offer more of them, with even more creative ways of centering on minor keys.
2. Progressions that begin and end on different key centres: It’s sometimes refreshing to hear a progression that starts in a minor key, then modulates (changes key centre) to focus on a different note (often a major key). These progressions can be used to change key, or to circle right back to your original key choice.
3. A category of progressions we call “mirror progressions”: A mirror progression is one in which the second part of the progression mirrors the first part in chord function, with the actual chords often being somewhat different. A mirror progression is useful for taking a melody, then repeating that melody note-for-note while harmonizing it with completely different chords. Like category 2 above, it’s a refreshing way to present a melody.
4. In addition to the above, a whole array of progressions that we didn’t cover in the first App, “Essential Chord Progressions”:

• Suspensions 
• Assorted dominant chord formulas
• Inverted pedal points
• Circle of fifths progressions
• Chord planing

General chord progression advice: Without a doubt, the vast majority of correspondence we receive from songwriters concerns how to deal with chords. So I’ve inserted several small articles throughout this App that answers some of the more common questions we´ve received:

• What Makes a Good Chord Progression?
• Which Should Come First – Chords or Melody?
• How Innovative Should Chord Progressions Be?
• The One-Chord Song... and Make-Up?!

Chord Progression Formulas

For many songwriters, chord progressions are a mysterious wandering of one chord to another, without knowing what could or should happen next. We offer two chord progression Apps and a manual that contains many pages of suggested progressions. These are progressions you can use as is, or modify to suit your needs. But the problem is that many musicians simply don’t know how to modify a progression. By the time they’re done, the progression just doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t work.

You may not know it, but nothing destroys a song quicker than a chord progression that doesn’t work. Nothing in the songwriting business makes you look like an amateur faster than a bad progression.

It’s Not Magic!

Creating a good progression is not a magical process. How one chord moves smoothly to another is actually the result of hundreds of years of evolution. It may shock you to know that the way chords worked for composers like J. S. Bach and Mozart is pretty much the same way that chords work for the Beatles, Cold Play, and Beyoncé. Nothing much has changed except style.
This similarity through the ages regarding chord progressions is why it’s so relatively easy to take a pop song and convert it to something that sounds like it was written by a Classical composer a couple of hundred years ago. Or to take a centuries‐old melody and make it sound like it was written yesterday.

There are some differences between the progressions Bach would use, and the ones in use today. Our 21st century ears are, admittedly, quite different from the ears of a musician in the 1700s. There are ways that chords move that our ears will tolerate that would have caused considerable confusion a few centuries (or even just a few decades) ago.

You Need Formulas

There’s nothing much new that you can create when it comes to chord progressions. So if you’re looking for that new “killer progression” that will set your song apart,stop looking. You’re wasting time. Every progression that can be thought of has been done. As a songwriter, you need either or both of the following:

1.    Good progressions that work, so that you can start writing melodies that fit them.
2.    Good progressions that fit the melody you’ve already written.

So what you need, in short, are chord progression formulas, and that is what these chord progression formulas are going to give you.

Curated by:

Gary Ewer