Transcription
The number one way to create emotion in your music is by using chords. They are the foundation for everything else in your song, including the bass, melodies, and every other harmonic element. In this guide, I will show you how to create five emotions with five different chord progressions. But first, we need to return to the basics and learn how to create a chord progression from scratch.
The first step is choosing the key or scale of your track. Essentially, a key or scale is a collection of notes that sound good together, much like a palette of colors. You will use the same key or scale for the entirety of your track, including the chords, bass, melodies, and any other harmonic elements. Once you’ve chosen a key or scale, you can select a scale template, which makes it difficult to hit any wrong notes. If the key or scale is our palette of notes, then what is our palette of chords? The simplest approach is to use what are known as diatonic chords.
Now, don't worry—it may sound complex, but it simply means that every note in your scale serves as the base note of a chord. For instance, in the A minor scale, the first chord starts with an A, the second with B, the third with C, and so on, until we return to A. Each of these chords can be notated with Roman numerals: uppercase numerals for major chords, lowercase for minor chords, and a small circle for diminished chords (which we should generally avoid, as they sound strange).
We can also create cool emotions by using notes that lie outside the scale, but we will touch upon that in a moment. In most music, there are usually only three or four chords that repeat throughout the track. One of the biggest mistakes new producers make is overcomplicating their compositions with too many chords and chord progressions.
Once we’ve chosen our scale, let’s arrange the bass notes for each of these three or four chords. We want the progression to naturally resolve back to the root note of the track. In this example, since we are working in A minor, the root note is A. We should aim to make the bass progression sound good first because if that doesn't sound good, the chords won't either. Once we have a bass progression we like—one that resolves back to the root of the track—we can build out our standard triads.
Building standard triads is quite simple if you have your piano roll editor set to scale mode. All you need to do is skip one scale position each time from the root note, like this: skip a note, skip a note again, and so on. The resulting chords will often look like little blue hamburgers in your editor, and they will sound simple yet effective. Once you've built your standard chords, you can spice them up by adding sevenths or ninths, which involves counting up to the seventh or ninth position from the root of each chord.
For example, counting yields 1, 3, 5, 7 for the seventh, and adding the ninth means counting up to the ninth position as well. By including these notes, you can enhance the sound significantly. As a bonus, you can create what are known as sus4 and sus2 chords. This involves moving the third position in a triad up to the fourth above the root note or down to the second above the root note of the chord.
Most nicely sounding chord progressions share notes from one chord to another, making everything sound more cohesive. We can use chord inversions to achieve this. A chord inversion is simply changing the order of the notes in each chord to bring them closer together on the keyboard, which contributes to a much more polished sound. For example, bringing certain chords down an octave can enhance the overall effect significantly.
The sixth stage of crafting chord progressions involves considering the rhythm of the chords. Changing the rhythm can add groove or energy to your track. To try this, you could set your grid length to sixteenth notes and alternate the timing of your chords accordingly. This creates a really cool syncopated effect that can drive the music forward.
Now, the seventh stage is what I call the wild card, which I will show you shortly. The context of a chord is just as important as the chord itself. For instance, a chord can invoke different emotions depending on which chord comes before or after it.
Having covered that, let’s get into creating specific emotions. I challenge you to guess the intended emotion for each chord progression before we delve into the details, and you may recognize a few of these progressions.
For the first progression, we will work in the key of C Major, often considered the simplest key, as it consists of all the white notes from C to C. Using the Roman numeral system, the first chord is the fourth, the second is the first, the third is the fifth, and the last is the sixth chord, which is a minor chord. Together, this progression sounds like this, with the second chord arriving just before the beat, which drives the groove forward.
Now, with the melody added, can you guess the emotion? Furthermore, can you identify the track? If we select a major key and start the progression with a major chord, it's likely to evoke feelings of happiness or joy. Although there is a minor chord included, the three other chords in the progression are all major, and the track is "The Days" by Avicii.
Moving on to emotion number two, we will select a minor key for this progression. Starting with the first chord, which is a minor chord, we will then proceed to the sixth chord. If we begin on F, it corresponds to the sixth position in the A minor natural scale. Next, we will use the third chord, which is also a major chord, followed by the diatonic chord from the seventh position of the scale, which in this case is G major.
Together, with the melody, this combination conveys a melancholic feeling in the chord progression.
For the third emotion, I've chosen a favorite type of chord progression in the key of G minor. In this particular case, some notes from the second chord don’t actually originate from the G minor scale; instead, we borrow a chord from the parallel major scale. This creates a beautiful and unique sound, reminiscent of deep house music.
Did you guess the emotion? It can be described as mysterious, and some of you might even recognize it from the classic track “Deep Inside” by Hardrive.
For the fourth emotion, the bass progression itself conveys the intended sentiment, combined with a syncopated rhythmic pattern. This chord progression in F Major also serves as an example. The bass notes transition from the sixth position (minor) down to the first position (major), adding a seventh note for emotional depth, moving to the fourth position (major) and then to the fifth position (major) as well.
This ascending and descending pattern creates an uplifting feeling of hope. With the melody, it sounds like this.
Lastly, I have an absolute favorite chord progression in B minor, which incorporates some borrowed chords. Can you guess the track and the emotion we are trying to convey? This progression starts with a borrowed chord, shifting the third to become a major chord (B major instead of the minor expected in this key).
Then we introduce the third chord with the seventh included, bringing everything closer together. The sixth chord features a major seventh, and the fifth chord adopts a major sound as well. The culmination of these elements leads to a rich final chord progression.
With a melody, this combination creates an emotional experience that resonates deeply. Did you manage to guess that this track is "I Remember," a collaboration between Deadmau5 and Kaskade? The emotion it evokes for me is nostalgia.
Finally, the wild card I mentioned earlier involves supercharging your chord progressions with melodies. A mismatch between the chord progression and melody can create an emotional disarray, much like an awkward scene at a funeral.
If you enjoyed this video and found it useful, please hit like and consider subscribing to improve your music production skills every week. I look forward to catching you in the next video, where we will focus on honing your melody game.