Learn To Write Unique Chord Progressions

The modern world has spoiled listeners so much with a huge variety of musical genres, trends, and branches that for new artists it is becoming ever more difficult to stand out from the crowd. The use of jazz chords in hip-hop is no surprise to anyone, as well as the simple progressions of chords in popular music, they all have long become boring and form the very “musical noise” in which new performers often drown. Getting out of this vicious circle is both easy and difficult - it is necessary to write such chord progressions that will seem unusual and attractive to the listener. The ChordChord team has prepared three tips for you to help you learn how to write such tunes.

Listen to as much complex music as possible

In whatever genre you write - from techno to math rock - you still need a certain amount of music in your head to rely on. Of course, it is the best choice to listen to songs in the genre in which you yourself want to create - for example, jazz chord progressions will not be easy to write to a person who listens exclusively to ambient - but the most correct way out is to listen to complex, harmonious music with well-compiled parts. Mostly it's about jazz, art-rock, blues and other genres that do not break records of popularity in the 21st century.

Even Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails said that creating one of his most famous albums, The Downward Spiral was inspired by listening to albums of ... David Bowie. Although the music of Nine Inch Nails is very far from what David Bowie is famous for, it was his work that inspired Reznor to his famous power chords and the completely insane guitar part of the song Hurt, later performed and popularized by Johnny Cash.

Feel free to use specialized software

If you have an idea for an arrangement, but you have been unable to figure out how to write the main progression for several hours, it may make sense to use a chord progressions generator. It will not solve all the problems for you, will not write an attractive guitar part and will not sing everything “into notes”, will not make the sound clear and pleasant. But it can push you to some idea, create an opportunity for sudden insight, and it doesn't matter at all what instruments are involved in your work - such software works equally well with mandolin chords and an ordinary piano.

If you want to learn more about how to deal with a situation when you have no ideas, our article 5 Ways To Write A Song When You Have No Inspiration could be useful for you.

If you are not very familiar with the world of virtual instruments, then our team would recommend starting with something that can produce results here and now, but does not require specific knowledge - for example, ChordChord copes with this easily and has all the necessary possibilities starting with the choice of tonality end ending the definition of the tempo.

Despite all of the above, we would also like to note that it is not always “difficult” to mean “good.” The music market today is such that very often rather simple songs become much more commercially successful than complex works with unusual progressions. You need to determine for yourself what audience you are targeting, what result - including commercial, - you want to achieve. Try to balance your progression - leave them moderately recognizable, so as not to scare off potential listeners, but do not disdain to make unexpected turns.