In Volume 4 of the Indie Musician's Diary I write about how and why music creation had to take a one year breather as I started to write the book that explains my first album, (The Change My Mind book). My planned, second album, "Abide", was put on...
Today there are many companies pushing fantastic chord progressions tools that we indies can use and they seem so amazing don't they? The problem is that although they are packed with samples etc., they cost money and most of us don't have much of that to spare. Also these take up space on our computers. Wouldn't it be great to get some songwriting support online and for free. Let's look into some of my favourite online chord tools.
After jamming together with a friend, he reflected on the fact that some of my songs seem to have some "strange chord progressions". I took that to heart and started looking into the circle of fifths etc. but the theory was hard to immediately apply it to my songwriting. Music theory is the base for all music for sure, but I needed something more useful.
Autochords.com is one of the tools I have found useful and it is free!
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Just pick a key (major, minor, sharp or flat) you want to play in and the mood of the song. State which instrument you want to play and hit the enter key and there you go.
I heard that Hillsong and Bethel love to play things in G# and other unusual key just to stick out so I chose G#, guitar and ambient.
The cool thing with this online tool is that you can choose keys you never would have been able to figure out by yourself without the circle of fifths. How about G#m progressions? (You could just play the key of G with a capo on the first fret).
What's great is that you can listen to the different variations and see what fits your style.
Let's say I'm going to do a 12 bar blues instead:
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O.k. The app isn't perfect but it can help you and it's free! Link: https://autochords.com/
This one I found through a TicTok tip.
SoundGrail's Chord Progression Generator:
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I find it hard as a guitarist to know how to play the piano. This one makes it easy to find the basic chords. It has all sorts of other goodies too!
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And, you have a guitar tuner, an arpeggio generator, virtual piano, chord and interval finder. O, come on man, I can't tell you all the good stuff here (and a lot of it it is way over my head!) Much of it is useful for free but the full version costs $5 a month if you are ready for that level of creative genius. Great job whoever created that!
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And here is a great summary:
10 Best Free Chord Progressions Generators: https://hiphopmakers.com/free-chord-progression-generators-online
Well, I can't excuse my chord progressions anymore. There are rules and they may seem cumbersome but this is an easy fix for songwriters to get started when they need some inspiration.
Learning never ends for the serious musician and I guess I need to get into the circle of fifths to seriously understand why these chord progressions work so well.
