Chords which go well together

This is a great one to play with if you want to make I — IV — V your own. Pick a song from the hundreds of I — V — vi — IV tracks out there, for instance. Get the chord changes down on your instrument of choice so you can familiarize yourself with how they work in practice. A guitar or keyboard works best. Because the ultimate goal is writing the foundation of a song, you should pick an instrument suited to that end.

That will determine the starting point and key. Whether you go major or minor will depend on what you intend to write! Will you play it safe and pivot from I to IV? Or will you mix it up with something totally wild? Chords without rhythm are just notes! Play through the remaining chords in your key and find one that you like. This is a normal practice that every songwriter employs at some point in the process. In fact, very few artists actively sit down with a chord chart and map out all their progressions!

First and foremost, let your ears guide you through creating chord progressions. Removing some of the mystique behind songs we know and love by analyzing their chord progressions is a useful and inspiring exercise.

Ultimately, let your ears, hands, and personal taste dictate the progressions you write. Many singer-songwriters do this. I have a church song in the G progression. Slightly too high for my vocal. How to transpose it to an E progression? Thanks Ricky. I am a beginner myself and I cannot afford lessons so I needed a list of chords that go well together and showed how to play it. I am a songwriter and so it was very helpful for me! Did you mean Em?

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One Last Tip. About The Author. Brandon B. In most cases today, this particular progression works in pop music. Sounding pretty cheerful, these chords just flow into one another. First, it starts with a regular major chord, and then it goes into a minor iv and minor ii.

With these two chords, you can feel it getting somewhat sad or melancholic. However, the final chord, the V which is dominant in the scale, adds just a little bit of tension. This is especially pronounced because it goes from the ii-chord, which is a supertonic, right into the V chord.

If you want to increase the tension and add more to this progression, you can try and play the dominant 7th as the last chord. In the key of C major, this would be the G dominant chord. As this light-hearted name suggests, this progression brings out a very positive and optimistic vibe. And just like the previous example, it works for almost any genre that you can think of. Even completely different songs from various musical styles have it, so break out your Schecter and start riffing.

In this particular case, the distribution of chords creates a slightly melancholic vibe. This might seem a bit unusual since the progression has three major chords, but going from the VII chord and back to the i chord really does the trick for these settings.

The Andalusian cadence is pretty common for flamenco music. However, plenty of different genres also use it to recreate these sorts of vibes. This way, the progression feels as if it could go on forever. You can use this set of chords if you need your song or part of the song to feel more mellow.

The II-V-I progression is pretty common in jazz and old school blues music.