Essential Chord Progressions Website
Gary Ewer
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If finding the right chord progression seems like a random process, let's fix that! Discover the secrets of making a chord progression work, and get your songwriting moving in the right direction! Free articles, videos and ideas to clear up chord muddle! |
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CHORD PROGRESSION VIDEO
WHAT ARE STRONG AND FRAGILE PROGRESSIONS, AND HOW DO I USE THEM?
CHORD PROGRESSION VIDEO
HOW SONGS CHANGE KEY FROM START TO FINISH
CHORD PROGRESSION ARTICLES
Modes:
Which Bits of Music Theory Are Most Relevant for Songwriters?
To put it succinctly, music theory is what allows musicians to be literate. It makes it possible to listen to music and understand what's going on. This is important knowledge, because it allows composition to become a positive action, rather than a random hunting around for something that sounds good. The most obvious benefit of an understanding of music...
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Strong & Fragile Progressions:
Too Many Chords Can Clutter Up a Good Song
Boring an audience with music is probably the worst thing that can happen to a singer-songwriter. It’s worse than outright hatred. At least with hatred you’ve been able to stir up some emotions. And experience shows that when a song is hated, there’s usually another group of listeners that love it. Boredom is a much worse reaction, and part of the reason is that bored listeners...
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Making Chord Progressions Better:
5 Ideas To Turn a Boring Chord Progression Into Something More Exciting
Songwriting formulas will get you in trouble. But they’re tempting to use because once you’ve experienced songwriting success, you want to duplicate that success. A songwriting formula, however, stunts creativity, and starts to make all your songs sound the same. The one area where I’ve always told songwriters that they shouldn’t worry too much about predictability is with chord progre...
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The World of Songwriting:
Good Songwriting: Branching Out From 3-Chord Songs
If I did a blog post listing all the 3-chord songs that have been written in the past 5 decades, it would be a post many thousands of lines long. When we talk about 3-chord songs, we often mean these three: I-IV-V. And they account for thousands of songs. The further back you go, the more there are. It was during the 60s that songwriters developed their chord choices into something...
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5 Basic Pointers For Adding Chords to Melodies
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STRONG and FRAGILE PROGRESSIONS (all given in C-major):Simple progressions can be categorized as either being strong or fragile. A strong progression is one that clearly points to one note as the key, or tonic, note. They can be used anywhere, and are great especially for chorus melodies, which usually rely on the strong indication of a key.
Fragile progressions can be used anywhere, but work very well in verse melodies. Keep in mind that most multi-chord progressions are a mixture of strong and fragile elements.
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Diminished Chords (To see these progressions in fretboard/musical staff notation, click here.) C F Fdim7 C |
PROGRESSIONS THAT USE INVERTED CHORDS:
(What's an inverted chord?)
Inverted Chords C C/E F G C |
PROGRESSIONS THAT USE SECONDARY DOMINANT CHORDS:
(What's a secondary dominant chord?)
Secondary Dominant Chords C A Dm G C |
PROGRESSIONS THAT USE MODAL MIXTURES:
(What's a modal mixture chord?)
Modal Mixture Chords C F Fm C |