In a song I’m currently working on, there’s an 8 bar section where I started with this simple progression:
|| C | G | F | G | C | G | Aminor | F ||
Once I had the melody pretty well worked out I started fooling around with these chords; trying different variations on the ones above. Not to change the roots – which I liked with the melody – or whether they were major or minor. I was trying to see if there was anything I could add to or subtract from the triads above to nail the most appropriate and effective harmonization of the melody.
For example, in the third bar I played an F6 and liked it. To my ear there’s a big difference between an F chord (containing the notes F, A, and C) and an F6 (F, A, C, and D). After playing it both ways a bunch of times I decided I definitely liked the F6 better. In addition I decided that the F6 worked for the first two beats of the next bar too. So now my first 4 bars are:
||:C | G | F6 | F6 G |
(Since you can’t hear the melody or words, I know there’s no way for you to tell if these choices were wise choices. But I hope the idea of trying variations on chords comes through.)
A chord sound could also just be root and 5th, or root and 3rd (technically intervals, not chords), though in this song I didn’t need to go there. The triad is a choice too. Every choice, including a basic triad without embellishment, will create a different and distinct subtext under the melody.
For a while I changed the last (8th) bar, an F triad, to an F6/9 (the notes F, A, C, D, G). But soon enough I decided the original F triad sounded better and returned to it.
Another variation that I briefly tried was in the 7th bar, messing around with an Aminor7 until I returned to the Aminor triad. There’s a big difference between the sound of a triad and a minor7 chord (or any kind of 7 chord) – even though it’s just one note added or taken away.
And that’s the point here – if I really listen, one note added or subtracted in a chord sound makes a world of difference, creating distinct feelings. I find it’s worth taking the time to fool around with some of these variations before the song is ‘done’.
One other point. When I play my songs, live or recorded, this doesn’t mean the musicians are restricted to only the notes in the chords I wrote. Sometimes I want specific voicings, yes, but often it’s much looser. The other musicians may come up with variations that, in a particular context, work perfectly. But I try to lay out the chord sound I hear as precisely as necessary, so my ideas will come across clearly.
How do you find the chords in your songs? Do you experiment with them?
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The most interesting way I have ever found to discover chord variations is to stop thinking of chords so much as vertical structures but more like the horizontal motion of four voices singing together. If you have enough keyboard skill to plunk out chords on the piano, it’s easy enough to do this. Just imagine that your left pinky plays what the bass singer would sing, that you’re right thumb is a male tenor, and the other fingers of your right hand are like alto and soprano singers.
You want to give each of the singers something more interesting to do then simply moving from chord to chord on the downbeat of each bar. So, if you think of each singer as a separate finger, you can start making them sing little independent lines. For instance, suppose you are on an F chord, with your left pinky on low F, with your right hand playing middle C, and the F and A above that. The middle C is like the male tenor. if you want to move from your beginning F chord to a G chord, you could simply move your right thumb from C to D, and the tenor would then be singing a proper note for the G chord. Or, you could do something more interesting for the tenor, for example, allowing him to sing C, then C# as a transition note, and then finally D. So for a moment, you created a transition chord of F augmented. If you practice with this idea for a while, you will discover all kinds of interesting chord variations, suspensions, and other things you might not even have a name for. It’s a fascinating way to expand your chord vocabulary. Let your fingers be singers!
Rich,
Thanks for your ‘variations on the theme’. Very astute and interesting, and sure to be helpful.
Best wishes,
Tony
Chords are amazing things, I love them. I’m a huge fan of 7th’s and 9th’s both Major and Minor and the plethora of different variations in which you can play them.
7th’s, i find really interesting for instance a C7 (natural) contains C,E,G,Bb. (1st,3rd,5th,7th)
To change to a C Minor 7 you just drop the 3rd (E) a semitone to Eb
To change to a C Major 7 you simply raise the 7th (Bb) a semitone to B.
And that’s just the beginning, I spent years being confused by theory then one day just had an epiphany on how simple things are really. I can’t write or read music fluently because I don’t practice anymore but you don’t need to be able to do that to write tunes with good chords. Obviously I haven’t touched on augmented and dissonant chords, to be fair I don’t use them much.
My favourite chord sequence to play at the minute is an 8 bar verse part from a song I wrote called ‘Hold on’ (which can be heard here https://soundcloud.com/mr-dale-spencer/hold-on-original )
The chords are BMaj7x4, E/EMaj7/Eb7/AbMin7
I play it in a swung 4/4 rhythm and the change from E to Emaj7 (just dropping that one note) makes me feel great, also I capo the 4th fret, you can’t get the same feel otherwise.
Thanks for making me write something I hope interests others just as you did for me.
Peace and prosperity in music 🙂
Dale,
Thanks for your variations, and for sharing your personal experiences too. Very interesting chord sequence!
Thanks,
Tony
oh, a pleasure Tony.
Thanks for the reply 🙂