Ableton Forum

Hi Guys,

Pretty new to producing music and been looking alot into the music theory side of things. Has anybody got any information relating to what good intervals for progressions?

For example ive noticed that a common pop progression follows 757 (so a shift of 7 semitones up over 1 bar then down two then back up two for the final bar).

Anybody know of good articles that go over good progressions and general moves when working in for example minor scales in any key?

Or are there any at all?

Cheers
Pete

Just so your searches on this topic are easier, it's usual to name chord progressions according to a diatonic scale, not a chromatic one.

What this means is the numbers don't count semitones, they count notes up the scale (such as the white keys on a piano). So the chord progression you're describing would be recognizable to most musicians as a (1-)4-5-4 progression.


Other than that, remember that the diatonic scale is the key to Western music's chord progressions. Your song should be "in" a certain key and scale, making that key's chord the most important in the song. The major and minor chords in your song, if they're to sound like conventional harmonies, should be built out of notes from that scale.

So assuming you're in Cmaj, we can climb up the scale with a 1-3-5 chord shape:

(root) C-E-G - C major
(2nd) D-F-A - D minor
(3rd) E-G-B - E minor
(4th) F-A-C - F major
(5th) G-B-D - G major
(6th) A-C-E - A minor (aka 'relative minor')
(7th) B-D-F - B minor

So a song in C major can feature any of the above chords and sound basically "right". If we wanted to use a D major chord instead of D minor, we'd think, "D major... D-F#-A... but F# is not part of the C major scale! OH NO!"

Now, if your song is in a minor key? Well, that "relative minor" is meaningful here. Because a minor scale is just the same as a major one, starting and ending on its 6th note. (Don't understand this? Try playing the white keys on a piano from C up to C. Now play the white keys, from A up to A. See?)

So to make an A minor song, you use the exact same chords as above, but you number them differently - starting with A minor as the root, B minor as the 2nd, C major as the 3 (also known as the relative major - see how that works?), but following the same rules as before.

here are some other clichés to explore:
major:
6-4-1-5
1-5-6-4
1-5-4-5
1-2-4-5
minor:
6-4-1-1
3-7-1-1
4-7-1-1
1-5-7-4

Hope this gets you started!

The octave is extremely popular in Europe....

thats a quality post thanks alot.....!!!