- In this video, I'm going to share
with you five chord progressions
that every producer NEEDS to know!
These five chord progressions work
in any genre of modern music,
so whether you produce house, trance, techno,
drum and bass or pop, these chord progressions
are going to come in useful for you.
I'm also going to show you which HUGE tracks
these chord progressions are used in,
so you can decide which one's going to be good
for your music, and then use it appropriately.
After I've shown you these five chord progressions,
I'm going to share with you some bonus tips at the end
– so make sure to watch all the way through to the end –
...and this is going to show you
how to make these chord progressions your own,
so you're not just copying the tracks
that you've already heard them on.
Before we dive in, I just want to say a shout-out
to my masterclass student "Wouds",
who's just had his new track "Everything" released
on Beatport! it's a sick track, and
you can check it out below this video!
If you're completely new to music production,
you can download my free music producer starter pack
below this video, which includes some cheat sheets
and free samples, some templates....
Everything you need to get your first track written
and hit the ground running!
Without further ado, let's hop into the DAW
and get it done...
Five awesome chord progressions!
So, before we go into these five chord progressions,
we really need to have a quick look
at the Roman numeral system so you understand
what on Earth I'm talking about.
It sounds complex, but it's pretty simple.
So let me explain. Okay, so here in the piano roll,
I have just chosen the scale of C major.
Is the simplest to work in 'cause
it only uses the white notes.
So let me explain the Roman numeral system
and how it works with chord progressions.
In the key of C major, you've got seven notes:
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
and then eight to the octave.
Now the Roman numeral system counts from one to seven
and it uses lowercase letters for minor chords
and uppercase letters for major chords.
So C major would be
this would be the one chord
and that would be a capital one.
But if we were to use the second chord,
so that starting on the second note
within the scale of C major.
And that is a minor chord
and you can hear it's a minor chord.
So that would be written as lowercase ii in Roman numerals.
Last example would be if you had the fifth chord,
which would be starting on the fifth note
within that scale. So one, two, three, four, five.
That would be written as a capital V
because it's the fifth chord
within the scale of C major
and it's a major chord, so it's a capital. Okay.
So, now we've done that,
let's dig into these chord progressions.
So the first chord progression I call "the optimist"
because it sounds optimistic. So let's have a listen.
(Bm - G - D - A music progression)
Now, this is the chord progression you use
in Avicii's "Wake me up".
(energetic electronic music)
It's in D major.
And the Roman numeral system is a minor first,
a major sixth, a major third, and a major seventh.
The second chord progression I call "the epic"
and this is used in Swedish House Mafia's "One".
(energetic house music)
It's also used in John Newman's and Calvin Harris' "Blame"
although that's in a different key.
(EDM emotional music)
And it sounds like this.
(Dm - F - Am - G music progression)
And the Roman numeral chord progression it uses
is a minor fourth, then a major sixth,
then a minor fifth, then a major seventh.
Freaking awesome!
The next chord progression that I absolutely love,
I call "the smooth descender" and it sounds like this:
(G#m7 - F# - Emaj7 - C#m music progression)
Really, really lovely.
Just sounds like it's going down the scale.
And this is the chord progression used
in "Ocean Drive" by Duke Dumont.
(G# melodious indie music)
It's in the key of G# minor
and the Roman numeral chord progressions
it use is a minor first seventh chord,
then a major seventh chord,
then a major sixth with the seventh note added
and then a minor fourth chord
with the seventh note added as well.
And by seventh, I just mean that if you've got
the notes like this. That's the first,
that's the third, that's the fifth.
You just add the seventh note in the scale
and it gives it this lovely heart-melting seventh sound.
(G#m7 - F# - Emaj7 - C#m music progression)
Which takes me smoothly on to the next chord progression,
which is one of my personal favorites.
And this is actually called "the heart-melter".
And "the heart-melter" sounds like this.
(E#maj7 - F - Gm - A# music progression)
And this is used in Major Lazer's and DJ Snake's "Lean On".
(energetic electronic music)
It's written in the key of G minor.
And the chords that it uses
is a major sixth chord with the seventh added,
a major seven chord, a minor first chord
and a major third chord as well.
And this major third chord here,
I've just added a sus4 which I'm going to touch upon
in the bonus section.
So stay with me if you're enjoying it so far.
Let me know in the comments
which is your favorite chord progression so far.
Now, the final essential chord progression
I'm going to share with you
is the same chord progression
that is used in "Titanium" by David Guetta, featuring Sia.
And it sounds like this.
(G# - A# - Gm - Cm music progression)
Here it is in the track.
(uplifting electronic music)
The original track is written in C minor
and the Roman numeral chords that is using
in the progression is a major sixth chord,
a major seventh chord,
a minor fifth chord and a minor first chord.
And now we go onto the bonus section.
So all of these chord progressions are used
in a lot of music, and this is how I want to show you
how you can actually make them into your own
so you're not just copying other people.
Now we touched upon it already.
We looked at the seventh chord,
which is where you can add the seventh note
of a chord progression or the seventh note
in a scale that makes it sound,
it gives it a different quality.
So we're just doing this to the said chords
(G#maj7 - A# - Gm7 - Cm music progression)
and already it makes it sound different.
It makes it sound your own.
The next thing that you can do is use chord inversions.
And by this, all you're doing is reordering the order
of the notes within that chord.
So if we grab one note, hold shift and down,
move it down an octave, it's going to give it
a bit more of a jazzy feel
and we can bring the notes all closer together
within the scale.
Is going to change the sound slightly.
(G#maj7 - A# - Gm7 - Cm music progression)
So they are the same chords of Sia and David Guetta,
but they sound so different because we've used chord
inversions that added a couple of sentences as well.
Now, the next thing that you can do is
you can click on that link there's on
or around this video to find out more
about sus2 and sus4 chords,
but I'm just gonna show you quickly
how they work on here as well.
If we take away the seventh just to keep things simple,
the sus4 is when you take the middle note of a chord
and just move it up one interval within that scale.
(G# - A# - Gm - Csus4 - Cm music progression)
And it gives it that epic feel. And you can use a sus2,
which just moves it one interval
below that middle note within the chord.
And now it sounds like this.
(Gm - Csus2 - Cm music progression)
So that's another way you can do it.
And the last and final bonus step
for how to make these chords your own is you can
Actually, I've got two bonus tips.
One, is you could just switch the order of them.
So let's take this one here
and then just switch it around with this one.
(Gm - A# - G# - Csus2 - Cm music progression)
Boom, you've got your own chord progression.
And the next thing is just change the key of it.
And you can do that by grabbing all the chords
and then just moving them up or down.
(Cm - E# - C# - Fsus2 - Fm music progression)
And you very quickly come up
with your own original sounding chord progression
that's based on one
of these five essential chord progressions
that every producer should know.
So there you have it guys.
I really hope you enjoyed this lesson.
As I said, if you are new to music production,
you can download my free starter pack below this video.
And if you want to check out more advanced coaching,
some one-on-one weekly feedback, stuff like that,
you can check out my eight-week EDM Production Masterclass
below this video as well. Thanks again for watching.
If you want videos like this listen every week
to help you seriously improve your music production game.
You could consider subscribing to my channel. Thank you.
And until next time, cheers and happy producing.
(upbeat electronic music)