Popular Chord Progressions

Great Chord Progressions

Composing music has much to do with finding the right chord progressions. If you're a budding songwriter or a seasoned veteran, I'm sure you thought a lot about what chords to use in your song. Here are some from popular songs that you could try.

1. Vanilla Twilight

This first chord progression from a popular song by Owl City is fairly simple. C major, G major, A minor, and then F major. This chord progression is very common and useful. Beginning and ending with major chords makes your song sound fairly happy, so that's one reason why this song by Owl City doesn't sound very sad in spite of its sorrowful lyrics. If you need a somewhat happy chord progression mixed with a minor tone, choose this one.

Listen to 0:00 - 0:18 of Vanilla Twilight. Notice the chord progression is repeated 3 times and then it changes to C major, G major, D minor, F major for the ending. Also, while I'm on this song, notice the 2 key transpose starting at 2:24 and how it changes the feel of the song, making it much more majestic.

2. What Makes You Beautiful

This second chord progression is taken from One Direction's famous song. Here are the chords: E Major, A major, and then B major.

Listen to 0:00 - 0:38 of What Makes You Beautiful. For this section the chord progression is the same, but then it changes slightly with a minor chord and a few other changes. Still, throughout most of this song, the chord progression is the same. Even with such a simple chord progression, this song still became extremely popular, so there must be something to it. Perhaps it's because this chord progression is very happy-sounding and positive unlike the first one, which had a minor chord in it. 

3.You Belong With Me

This third chord progression from the verse of Taylor Swift's song is D major, A major, E minor, and then G major.

Listen to 0:08 - 0:36 of You Belong With Me. It's easy to tell that this chord progression isn't as happy-sounding as the other one, and I think the E minor chord in it makes it sound even sadder than Vanilla Twilight. This chord progression has sort of a wistful, hopeful, mysterious feel to it. 


That's all for now. Have fun composing music!

Overcome the Musical Barriers

Composition Motivation

Composing music can be very challenging, for both the novice and the expert. However, their problems are very different. While the beginner struggles to come up with any melody or a good melody, the expert struggles with trying to create different-sounding piece. These difficulties will be dealt with in these following 3 tips which will hopefully help you improve your composition skills.

1. Listen to Music

This might sound trite or unimportant, but this is one of the most valuable tips to a composer. By listening to music, your mind installs new chord progressions, new note patterns, and new rhythms without you even knowing what's happening. To the expert, this is one of the best ways of getting out of the rut of making boring and similar-sounding pieces. To the novice, this can help them to understand how good songs are made and how to create them.

A clarification should be made, though. Don't just listen to one type of music. To get the full benefit of this tip, try to listen to many styles of music. For example, even if you hate classical music or instrumental music, give them a listen. You will likely pick up new information to furnish your songs with.

2. Just Try

This is another critical tip. Even though a lot of people may have talent, they won't ever know because they won't ever try for long enough. They'll give up after a few attempts and tell themselves and others that they just weren't cut out to be a musician. This unwise excuse can often cost them a lot in life and it happens with far more than just music. Some people tell themselves they'll never be good at a certain sport, and you know what, it happens. They never are good at that sport. Self-fulfilling prophecies can be very dangerous so try not to make them--at least not the negative ones.

3. Connect with Others

There is a lot of great music advice out there and there are a lot of composers who would love to help you improve your skill. Get connected with blogs, forums, or chat rooms that discuss music composition and your knowledge of music will definitely improve. If you are shy and don't like to meet new people, just try it anyway. You never know how much fun you'll have and how much your life will change for the better.

That's all for now. I hope you have fun composing. Remember, never give up!