Minor = sad / major= happy

 

Scaler 2 VST.
Not an encyclopaedia but many different chord progressions organised by genre and a whole bunch of "artist contributed" progressions. Plenty of inspiration and the VST gives you a quick way to audition them and many ways to experiment with changing them. Of course, progressions don't really belong to a particular genre. The genre is more defined by the instrumentation and rhythm than by the raw chords.

And don't listen to the idiots in this thread who make out it's somehow cheating or impure - they are just feeling insecure. Every artist has copied chord progressions from somewhere at some point. It's what you do with them that counts.

 

The word "idiot" means "non-expert".

"Stealing is part of the job" and "You don't have to invent the wheel". The great art in music today is in arranging.
Otherwise, many songs today are repetitions of repetitions, i.e. copies of copies...!

Since the invention of the PC and the Internet, there are new songs on the Internet every day, but how much of it is new or unique?
I once wrote here that I wish for the return of disco and ItaloDisco of the eighties, but with modern plug-ins and a touch of new speed. I think life has become faster today compared to the eighties.

Whether I hear the jingle for a show on TV or briefly listen to the latest hits, I always hear the same bass, the same drums are probably an NI drum machine and Antares Autotune....!

Hopefully the phase of musical confusion will come to an end and we can focus on quality again, or things will continue to go downhill with lyrics like:

Spoiler: Sabrina Carpenter - Espresso

Sabrina Carpenter - Espresso

[Chorus]
Now he's thinkin' 'bout me every night, oh
Is it that sweet? I guess so
Say you can't sleep, baby, I know
That's that me espresso
Move it up, down, left, right, oh
Switch it up like Nintendo
Say you can't sleep, baby, I know
That's that me espresso

[Verse 1]
I can't relate to desperation
My give-a-fucks are on vacation
And I got this one boy and he won't stop calling
When they act this way, I know I got 'em

[Pre-Chorus]
(Mm) Too bad your ex don't do it for ya
(Mm) Walked in and dream-came-trued it for ya
(Mm) Soft skin and I perfumed it for ya
(Yes) I know I Mountain Dew it for ya
(Yes) That morning coffee, brewed it for ya
(Yes) One touch and I brand-newed it for ya (Ooh)

 

Everytime i hear that
"Move it up, down, left, right, oh
Switch it up like Nintendo"
i facepalm

but overall i don't think her lyrics are that bad as a whole.
I'm not even gonna mention trappers
but in pop music, if you get much more complex than this, people probably won't even like it.

 

If you know basic music theory, then learning functional harmony is the fastest way to learn how to effortlessly write chord progressions that always sound good (within the framework of traditional western music).

 

couldn't agree more

it's exactly what I am doing with the book of Carlos Almada. He is a great music teacher here in Brazil.
I think he is a genius, his books are awesome

https://www.amazon.com.br/Harmonia-Funcional-Carlos-Almada/dp/8526809695

 

its hard to judge lyrics imho, not only in pop music

are led zepplin lyrics great? i dont know... there's a meme about it on other thread

 

When you hear a new track & how many times you have said that sounds like!!! People use the same chords over & over!I & If they copyrighted all the chord progressions, there would be no music. Its about creativity changing keys/vocals/melodies etc.. Not just mimicking someones work.

 

Not really for chord progressions, but I find this interactive page very helpful in a lot of theory aspects.
Use the menu on the right for different sections and scroll down on the pages.

https://muted.io

It seems to have a desktop app for some $, but the functions on the page itself are free, and there is no need for an account.

 

well, you can judge the rhymes and the syntax objectively.
but yeah that's not everything to it.

But again as you can see in Sabrina's lyrics, the pre-chorus she goes:
... for ya
... for ya
... for ya
....

She's rhyming 'for ya' with 'for ya' which is considered to be poor rhyming, uncreative.
And that's one of the things i think @Radio meant when he said bad lyrics.

But in Sabrina's defense, poor rhyming is a very common thing in pop music.

But yes Sacy i agree with you, it can get hard to judge lyrics.
Here i am more like sharing my opinion.

 

Last edited: Nov 12, 2024

Just ask AI...

I was working on a collab and wanted inspiration for what the mood was, so I asked AI what tracks used that specific progression. It was a pretty unique one, but it gave me a few ideas that used a similar series and that nailed it for me. I had something to relate to, so I could understand what I was hearing and translate that to an emotion...

The encyclopedia already exists and it won't slag you off for asking questions... I always forget about AI and remember when I read the replies to a post like this...

I wonder when AI will be able to give feedback on what our tracks are missing

 

Go download a Beatles PVG book.

 

Well, it wouldn't be the right sequence to be the Konami code, so Nintendo is perfectly fine.

 

And yet Elton John - Sad Song is major...

 

Indeed there are popular progressions, yet I think that learning basics of tonal theory helps a lot, it helped me a lot.

Example, cadences are kind of progressions, so perfect, plagal, deceptive, etc. help to identify the nature of the analyzed track.
Thank to this (and a lot of practice and listening), I can recognize almost instantly any tonality and scale mode, before that was just a trial and error on the keyboard, a pain in the ass.

Then you listen to a song and say (e.g.) ok this is I to VI, to V and to I home again.
I don't think it's really important to learn static progressions, it's a dynamic process.

 

functional harmony is indeed the fastest way

 

Last edited: Nov 13, 2024

In practical terms, study the genre and musical style for which you want to compose. Despite having many similar and recurring harmonic functions, genres and their styles sometimes have idiosyncratic aspects that are best understood in situ.

Thinking in terms of possibilities for basic progressions in tonal music, study these two diagrams: they constitute the simplest scheme that exists that doesn't involve modal borrowing, dominant substitutes, augmented sixth chords, altered chords, polychords, chords from exotic scales, etc):

Major Mode:



Minor Mode:



For further clarification, study the entire Chapter Seven: Harmonic Progression and the Sequence from Kostka's Tonal Harmony (2017, McGraw-Hill)