*Discovering* Chord Progressions

Interesting thoughts...

I write quite a bit using BB as a sketch pad..... it allows me to quickly put a chord progression down and "try it before I buy it".  I can use different styles on the same progression.... and sometime it works and sometimes not.  This is how I come up with some ideas that have turned into songs.... playing around with chords, and the muse hits from the right direction and suddenly I'm writing a song that I had no previous thoughts about.

Other times I will have an idea in my head and use BB to flesh it out....in this case knowing the tempo, style, and so on.... I can quickly get a chord pattern down for verses and choruses. In this case, the song may have been written with acoustic guitar and the lyric written into a notebook pad.

I think, personally, BB has been one of my favorite tools to use in composing due to a number of factors. I like that I can easily transpose from key to key in a matter of seconds, and I can try different chords.... instead of a plain old C chord, I can easily change to Cmaj, C2, C6, C7, C13, Caug, Cdim, C7b9, and so on.... of course, most of those are not interchangeable in teh context of the song.... but popping the right chord in the right place will take the song composition in a totally new direction, and that has happened on a number of occasions. Oh yeah... I can work on music in the same room as the family watching TV..... using my headphones. So they can watch Glee and I can do something useful with that time.

As a guitar player, I have found that playing chords and potential chord progressions on a keyboard/piano has helped open up the sonic possibilities of a song.  Using a keyboard has helped me find different chord voicings and interesting harmonies that I would not have found composing  only on a guitar. 

Bang out chords on the guitar, with theory in the back of my head. Then, throw in subsitutions for the obvious, flatting a chord, playing a secondary dominant to create a temporary key change. Modal playing.

Bang on the keyboard, to discover things I wouldn't do on the guitar.

But for the most part, I just play "cowboy chords". It's melody hooks that I'm trying to "discover", not really chord progressions. The chords can inspire melody for sure, I strum to find melodies. But it's amazing how many melodies can be done over just cowboy chords.

I've been playing guitar for decades and piano ...well longer actually but not as seriously. Still, with all the chords I know it's hard to find just the right chord sometimes.... searching the chord book or chord computer, while handy, breaks the flow.

I "let my fingers do the walking". Literally just letting them fall where they will in different positions until I hear a couple-few chords in succession that I like, usually along with a rhythmic riff of some sort. Usually those two or three chords will naturally lead to others, some familar, some not. Sometimes I have to hunt for the voicing of the next chord I'm "hearing" vaguely in my head. 


Like others, I also take advantage of many "happy accidents" that occur when I'm getting familiar with a new piece. Since improvising for me is all about muscle memory, when I make a good-sounding mistake, I can usually tell my hands to repeat that mistake the next time around without a second thought. Sometimes the "mistake" is the voicing I wanted all along, and was not quite getting right.


The other thing that happens is I have dozens (probably hundreds at this point) of snippets of things in the back of my head that never went anywhere, and I will find that an old snippet fits right in as the chorus or other section of a new piece.


I wish I could meld some more theory with this trial and error approach, as I sometimes get "stuck", and can't figure out where to go next, or how to return a progression artfully to the root. Also, it's hard to break away from familiar progressions sometimes, and a little theory would probably help. But what little theory I do know never comes into play. I don't usually even have any idea what key I'm in until I go back later and look at what I'm doing.

EDIT: Some miscellaneous examples of the work product of this "method" can be found here: http://soundclick.com/onehandclapping

Great post Philip and a good body of thoughts to draw from in reply already.

I think initially I wanted to get away from 'standard' and often heard progressions and often ended up with weird and convoluted results.  I've done a lot of research on song construction since and realise now why many progressions are classed as 'standard', simply put many of them work extremely well, and sometimes its all to easy to over-think things in an intellectualised quest to be original when often sweetly succinct can be the key.

Most of that research often leads me back to the '60's and '70's not particularly because of nostalgia but because it was a period of time where many academically trained writers were brought in by the glut of performers (and entrepreneurs) that had no clue about writing but wanted this new aspect of fame (or shot at great riches), by being a pop star (or representing one).

Although granted there has been much well written music since, the emphasis changed toward a less formal written structure and more of creating and combining exciting sounds, or maybe just a groove, for defining that which causes impact to the listener.  Not only that more performers that were not necessarily great songwriters took on the role of writing thus somewhat reducing the underlying strength of the 3 minute pop song, which I consider to be an art form in itself.  That 20 year period for me has to be the pinnacle of the genre, where the raw and fearless talent of these wannabe pop stars met with the commercially aware, very sophisticated and professional writers that had previously had successful careers in film and theatre and were now pioneering in this new field.

FWIW, but I'm merely a rookie apprentice to the great writers that have gone before, I commonly use one of three approaches to arrive at the underlying progression, one is I get a melody in my head which I will get down as a single note line, I'll then add a nice harmony line to that which will usually dictate the key and thus the chords to give emphasis from there.

Secondly I'll produce a rhythm track of just drums and bass and when that sounds cool enough and starts 'speaking' to me the chords will grow from that bass line, by which time although not always, a melody will be implied.

Thirdly I'll just try out different chord combinations directly and spacings between them, some great tools are available that have already been mentioned will do that job if like me you are not adept on a keyboard or guitar.  From a progression I'm satisfied with I'll then work on a bass line to give a sense of rhythm and feel and again hopefully it will suggest some melodic content from there.

Lyrics for me always come from the music and not the other way around.  A feature in the tune usually 'sings' a title or a theme which I can then flesh out the subject from.

"Knowledge must lead intuition" - Bill Evans.

For me, the answer has been a study of Lyle Murphy's System of Horizontal Composition based on Equal Intervals, a.k.a. "The Equal Interval System" (EIS).   Although the title of the course sounds confusing and grandiose, it is the only harmonic system I know of that whose basis is the overtone series and writing harmonies linearly, one line at a time.  It's actually easier than traditional theory and yet encompasses it as well.  Voice-leading is everything!

PM me if you want to know more about it.

J

Can some people mention and link to a song they have done that they think has a great chord progression?

Yeh, another interesting scheme I've played around with a few times, but need to try some more, is to just pick some chord progressions for your song, play the whole song through as a guide track on guitar or something. Then track various other instruments, none of them playing chords, all playing single lines that just work against the chords you've chosen. Don't play roots generally, and try to do various passing lines and such.

Then, at the end, just remove the guide track. So all you have now are the lines that worked against the chord progression, but not the chord progression itself, since the various instruments lines might not actually be playing the whole chord that underlied them or some inversion of it or some interesting expansion of it. So it can suddenly sound a lot more interesting. And even if it is playing those original progressions ultimately, it may not really sound like it is.