PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Songwriting Drummer Needs Chord Progress Advice

Hey Gang,

I'm probably the dumbest drummer that ever went to a major music school that doesn't know anymore about putting chord progressions together than Roxanne Shante ("Where Da Hell My Phone?") At any rate, if I could get some of you scholars to look at this progression (Attached) I sure would appreciate it. I'm mainly concerned with the Chorus which starts at bar 17, and goes thru bar 34, then resolves on the Amaj7 at 35 and back into a verse, which is truncated a bit. I'm planning to extend it another round (2 bars per chord, just like the 1st verse). Then, at 43 (DMaj7) I want to put a Bridge there that resolves at 51. I like the descension of the DMaj7, C#m7, Bm7, and the resolution to Amaj7. I'm trying to think of a fading Outro, or a sudden full stop. Any Ideas?

I will give this a try...

Your arrangement (chords) appears to be a good start. Key of A with all the chords being enharmonic (meaning no key changes) or none of the typical substitutions, which I assume is what you are now looking for. Your structure is Intro-Verse-Chorus-verse- Bridge-outro. You may want to start the chorus with the vi instead of the ii - a bit more typical as a starting point. And you might consider adding the chorus again after the bridge (again typical). I mocked this up in BIAB and felt the default extended outro fadeout sounded nice.

Otherwise, don't know what else I can sugest since I don't really know what feel/vibe you are going for. Your reference to "Roxanne Shante ("Where Da Hell My Phone?" goes right over my head. The major and sus chords lean toward a jazz feel, if that is what you are going for try some tritone substituions or the familar major minor modal substitution. No right or wrong way. BIAB 2025 does have a feature to audition chord substitutions. Use that and Let your ear tell you which way to go.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rd5PLG8S4uR-_IWZVuYmDMc02_gwGfsN/view?usp=sharing

It's a bridge, which is generally going to be contrasting material.

You want it to smoothly return to the original key, so that usually means something like at V7-I back into to Amaj7. That could be E7 Amaj7, but that's certainly not the only option.

But instead of worrying about that, I'd figure what key/feel I wanted the bridge to be in, and then work out what shims need to be put in to make it transition back. Heck, you even just do a hard jump back to A major and not worry about the transition at all.

Worry less about the theory, and just find something that you think sounds good. Music theory is most useful when you're stuck and are trying to figure something out, like how to make a modulation work. But it's generally better if you can just trust your ears instead of relying on what amounts to musical cliches.

This is excellent advice. When I taught music theory to my guitar and bass students I always said "learn music theory but don't let it get into the way of your playing". It can open new doors by learning it and scales, exactly like what David said.

BiaB is a great tool for experimentation. Save/copy your song and then just try adding different chords in your chorus and bridge. Sometimes the most unorthodox chord progressions (that is not so called normal chord progressions) turn out to be the best chord progressions and/or transitions.

Good luck.

Came upon this item this morning. I thought it perfect to explain to our drummer friend why we apply music theory to our compositions. Sometimes your ear just can not make this stuff up.

I always use exactly the same rule with chord progressions as I do with scales, melodies, and lead parts.

Play what sounds good.

That is the same rule that I use and the only rule one should follow.

OK. guys, really sorry it's taken me so long to reply back. I've just been trying to earn some REAL $$$. Anyhoo, what I've been doing to learn "what sounds good" is find tunes that I like, then go to Chordify, or Ultimate Gtr and copy the chords into an AI site, or come here, and apply whatever style I have in my head. Works pretty well in most cases. I don't have to worry about copyrights, cuz I'm using my own lyrics and groove. But I still haven't quite figured out WHY they sound good. That's why I come here.
SeeYa@DaCoda,
KC

Hi KC!
Your question starts at a position that not all songwriters start at i.e. a chord progression. For me, while there are occasions when I initially start with chords, it is usually accompanied by a rudimentary melody that takes shape as the chords do - one feeds into and inspires the other. Both together start to inform the harmonic idea of the song. Sometimes, this is also accompanied by a lyrical idea.

This question you asked is related to another which is 'What inspires you, musically?' This is a thread with a few contributions and also links to other related threads that might give you some ideas to check out: Inspiration and creativity

The chords you provided in your BIAB chordsheet pic illustrate the problem - I could see the chords for each bar and that the song was in 3/4 time - but nothing more. Is there a melody? What is the tempo? What Style (and therefore 'feel') were you imagining. All of these can inform either directly or indirectly where a song goes to.

In relation to copying chords from another song that sounded good - as the basis for my own - I found I couldn't get the original out of my head, so I've not used this approach anymore. Personally, I like straying outside of the key (modulation, borrowed chords etc.), and I don't like thinking theoretically about this when I use it - just does it sound good?

All of this is to repeat what others have said - just go by what sounds good - but I'd add to put in some of the other fundamentals like tempo, style, feel and importantly, melody, and then you'll start to find your chord progression takes shape at the same time as these other elements that define your song.

Enjoy the journey!
Andrew D

To add to what others have hinted at, I thought I would add my favorite feature of Real Band, and that is midi chord detection.

If you set up a piano synth and play it in real band and capture what you're playing then real band will tell you the exact chord names of what you just played.

It is hard to describe how invaluable this is for a songwriter.

I think it's pretty much an absolute must, and this is just me, to have at least a cheap keyboard where you can fiddle and fool around with chords at least in the key of C. It's not that hard.

The most important part of a song and the part that you absolutely cannot do without is the melody line.

You don't have that many notes to choose from and in pop it's usually seven.

Anybody can sit down at a piano and fiddle and fool around and come up with a melody line if you give yourself an hour.

Then once you have that and have recorded the notes so you can look at them, you only have to ask yourself, man I wonder what chord I should use to go along with that note.

Say one of the notes in your Melody is an A. Well the chord could be an A Minor it could be a D Minor 7 it could be a D minor, it could an A major, it could be an F, or even something else as long as the A sounds good inside of that chord. Every songwriter that's any good sits in front of (or holds) an instrument and fiddles and fools around to find the chord that sounds the very best for that particular note at that particular moment in the melody.

It's kind of impossible to do this if you're just shuffling experimental chords around from a 200 Page jazz theory chord manual on all the different possible chords you can play. (I'm not saying that you shouldn't understand what chords are all about and what the chords are, I'm just saying that you can't shuffle them around like playing cards in order to arrive at a song.)

That's doing it backwards, and I've never found that to work at all in any shape form or fashion. At least not for me.

The reason why I love real band is because when I am sitting there playing the piano and I come up with something that I like, and recording it in MIDI, I will often go, man that's awesome, now what the hell was I doing?

Real Band will show me what I'm doing.

And then once I see it, I usually go oh I get it, it sounds good because..... And Real Band just gave me the chord chart right in front of my face.

But that's the only way that it really works for me, and it's the reason why I don't really bother that much with theory after a certain point. It is because I just don't find it to be all that useful. The theory part can explain why it sounds good later after I've already figured it out but it does me absolutely no good to try and use theory to get to the right chord.

The theory only helps me to understand why it is good once I've already found it.

Does that make sense?

In other words the melody line is everything. The melody line is what drives or dictates the final chord progression. It's not the other way around.

Some good advice above. My only added point (unless I missed it) is to use BiaB Part Markers to define sections of your song. For example, there should be a part marker at bars 17 and 35 to define what you're calling your chorus. I find the A and B sections of most RealStyles highly effective in providing a musical contrasts that can help in songwriting. MultiStyles can provide even more variety. But on Part Markers, like everything else, use your ears. Good luck!

great advice here.

i particularly like how david uses rb..

there are lots of tricks to discover in rb.

i agree melody is king plus of course grooves.
i start with melody often in my brain and go on from there.

lets also not forget simple chord structures have led to massive song hits over the ages. eg a song i was listening to the other day just E A and D....seger if i remember.
or say the hit gloria...but listen to the Santa Esmerelda version on you tube. ultra groovy imho.
another songwriting technique is to start with a groovy bass.
eg listen to the animals we gotta get outta this place intro groove established by the bass player. key of C if i remember.

us rockers used to have looong discussions about what makes a great song with very jazzer friends....who sometimes looked down on the rocker genre.
but guess who was getting the gigs ??....because we played
to what our audience wanted.

i wouldnt know a chord extension from a flattened this or sharpened that in a fancy chord...but i go by what sounds wowser. And often i go...love that weird chord then if it sounds good i will use it. so i agree if it sounds good it IS good. eg 22nd chords...lol.

one of many tricks in rb is to use the drum midi generator BUT instead of driving drums have it drive say pg synthmaster...one gets many song ideas this way.

some of the songs in my sig started out as happy accidents
i got from rb....just mucking around with various groovy rb features. as such useing rb im never short of song ideas...my prob is too many great song ideas from rb and not enough time. yep there is gold in them rb hills.
thanks rb.

happiness.

om