Band-in-a-Box 2024 New Feature - New Chord Progression Builder 

This shows you the best next chords at any point, in pop or jazz, and allows you to interactively create your own progression.

To launch the Chord Progression Builder, press the [Chord Builder] toolbar button or the Ctrl+Shift+B keys and then click on the [Progression Builder] tab.

This is a floating window so it can be left open as you work entering chords onto the Chord Sheet.

The Chord Progression Builder displays and suggests the best next chords in the current key. The top row shows diatonic chords made up only of notes in the key. They are the most common chords used in the key, with the 1, 4, and 5 chords being the most common. Other rows add additional chords that are part of the key, such as dominant 7th approach, slash chords, parallel minor, diminished, and more. You can enable the Jazz checkbox to see jazz chords (e.g., sevenths like Maj7) instead of pop chords (e.g., triads like C).

The current chord is highlighted in black and the suggested good chords to come after it are highlighted in colors. These occur if the Highlight Current Chord and Highlight Suggest Next Chords options are enabled. The blue color indicates common chords and the orange color indicates less common but more interesting chords. Normally, you will see just one or two interesting chords but you can cycle through the interesting chords by pressing the [Var.] button. If the Show All Possible option is enabled, you will see all the interesting chords.

The top Diatonic row shows diatonic chords made up only of notes in the key. They are the most common chords used in the key, with the 1, 4, and 5 chords being the most common. Other rows add additional chords that are part of the key. The chords on the Dominant 7 row are considered to be in the key when they resolve up a 4th to a scale tone. For example, A7 resolves to D, which is a scale tone in the key of C. The diatonic chords are also commonly used with different chord tones as the bass note. They are called slash chords, like C/E, are listed on the Slash Chords row. For a major key like C, the chords from the Cm key are also commonly used and are shown on the Parallel Minor row. The most common Diminished chord used is the 1 diminished family [Cdim7, Ebdim7, F#dim7] in the key of C. Half-Diminished chords (e.g., #4m7b5 [F#m7b5] and 7m7b5 [Bm7b5]) are used as 2-5-1 leading to minor diatonic chords. The All (Common) row lists all commonly used chords with the root in the key. Clicking on the small button on each row will list more suggestions.

Shift+clicking on one of the suggested chords lets you preview. Clicking on it enters it to the current cell on the Chord Sheet and then the Builder will suggest the best chords for the next. You can repeat this process until you get a great chord progression for your song.

The [Clear Chord] button erases the chord already entered on the current cell.