Waves IV XX

 

Guilty. Just not really interested in any celebrity. Thus, no personal insult

 

Sticking to the major and minor keys is like riding a bicycle with the training wheels on. To my ears, the magic happens when you introduce some chord variations and inversions, etc. As a guitar player, there is nothing more boring than playing A, D & E chords on repeat, so I am always looking for a slight twist to add some colour.

As an exercise, I would recommend studying the Key of C, and check out all the variations that are available to a composer/songwriter.

 

Lots of interesting ways to progress chords, playing the third as a major instead of a traditional minor is a way to jazz things up a bit (for example, C->D/F#->E, E2, E7 or even E7aug).

This article gets into some good but strange chord progressions, if you are just starting out, this might be a little over your head, but if you are a little more experienced, there are some great progressions here (a perfect way to test these out is Band in a Box).

https://spinditty.com/learning/disharmony

As a side note, when I play Amazing Grace, I use the major third instead of the minor third trick.

---G-----B7--------C------G
Amazing Grace How sweet the sound