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Quote: jkung ➡️ Originally Posted by also, can anyone recommend me books or videos pertaining to chords and song writing? I have music theory for dummies and a few other pop piano books but they delve into rhythm and scales more than figuring out chords.

I really would love a workshop on how to write songs using chords and the most common chords in pop music. of course i practice but applying this to my pop productions is a different matter. Basically, what i would like to be able to do is sing a melody and figure out the chords that go with that melody and then write other progressions for the B Part, Chorus, ETC. i already do this but i find i end up using very elementary triads and often times guessing. What type of training do i need?

First, I HIGHLY recommend this website:Go through it a couple times and do the trainers...it will help.As a really quick primer, here's some basics for chord theory.As you already know, all the white keys on piano fall into the key of C. So you could also say the piano layout is oriented around the key of C.If you start at C and play all the white keys up to the next C, you have a C major scale, or C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. So you are working with 7 notes.Now for western music, the space between two octaves is actually split up into 12 half steps or "semitones."Notice when you play those white keys, where are the 5 black keys?The black keys are showing you that there is a particular spacing to those notes for the key of C.So from C to D, you are "skipping" one black key. This is called a whole step, whole tone, or "tone" for short.From E to F, notice there is no black key between, so this would be a half step or semitone. Also, from a white key to a black key (i.e. C to C#) is also a half step.Now, if you take the spacing of whole steps and half steps in the key of C and turned it into a formula, it would look like this:W W h W W W hSo if you start from any note and play every note according to this formula, you now have a major scale for that key. Make sense?So let's take the key of G.Start at G and go a whole step to A. Next go a whole step from A to B. Etc.Now you'll notice, when you get to E to F, according to the formula, there should be a whole step, which would make it F# instead of F.So the key of G is G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G.So now, let's turn this into chords.Let's go back to the key of C.To make a basic C major chord, you would take the first note, the third note, and the fifth note of the scale of the key of C.In this case, it would be C, E, G. Nice and easy right? Now, as you know, if you take that finger spacing and move it up every note of the scale, you get all the basic chords in the key of C. So let's look at WHY that works.Instead of saying the note name, let's give them numbers: so C=1, D=2, E=3 and so on.A C major chord would be the 1, 3, and 5 notes of the major scale of the key of C. So if you take the 2, 4, and 6 you have the. This is important.Remember our spacing formula for each key? So with the black keys where they are, this second chord is actually a minor chord.So let's look at the chords of C following this spacing.1=C Major, 2=D minor, 3=E minor, 4=F Major, 5=G major, 6=A minor, 7=B diminished.So in ANY key, this is always true. The 1 chord is ALWAYS major, the 2 is ALWAYS minor, etc.Also, this gives you the basis for more complex chords.For example, let's say that for C major you play the 1, 3, 5, and then add the 7th note of the scale. In other words, C, E, G, B. This is a C Major 7 chord.Now let's take the 5th chord of the scale of C...which would be? That's right, G Major. So with the chord theory it should be the 5, 7, and 2nd note of the scale right? So let's add the 4th note of the scale...so 5, 7, 2, and 4 or G, B, D, F. But notice how this sounds different than the other chord, even though it looks the same? It kinda has a bluesy sound to it.This is where the formula will help you figure out why. This chord is actually a G7, or Dominant 7 as it's called in Jazz.Basically what that means is that it's a G Major with a FLAT 7. If you take that F and moved it up a half step to F#, then it would have the same feeling as the C major 7 that we talked about earlier. And remember earlier that the Key of G had an F# in it? But since we are in the key of C, then you use only the white keys, so that 7th note relative to the key of G is actually flatted in C.In jazz music, people use Roman numerals in Upper and lower case to indicate the chord and whether it is major or minor, and it would look like this.I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii (usually this vii has a little circle by it to indicate diminished)So the I is the first chord of the key, and it's major because it's upper case. The vi is the sixth chord of the key, and it's minor because it's lower case.Thanks for hanging with me so far...and here's the big conclusion to my little primer.Many, if not most, songs in pop music use the same progressions, such as:ii, V, Ivi, IV, I, VI, V, vi, IVI, IV, VSo once you figure out what key you are in, you basically already know the progression because of the spacing of the notes and chords.If this was confusing, then please just click that link I gave you.

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