Chord Progressions / Composition Technique

Rayza1983

Right a good chord progression is the I IV V, now lets say we're in 4/4 time and in the key of C major, we use the I IV V for the verse of a song, what chords would you use to make a chorus, bridge, maybe even intro. Keeping this diatonic as I'm not up to key changes yet. Basically I always write a good riff, chord progression but get stuck when it comes to writing more to piece to the song. I'm curious of what others would do, what chords would you use etc, keeping it simple I know this is a huge topic otherwise

viz

Am, Ab, C, D, F, Fm, C, G7

viz

Dm Fm C C, Dm Fm C C, Dm Fm Em A, Dm Dm Fm7 G, C.

Rayza1983

viz said:

Dm Fm C C, Dm Fm C C, Dm Fm Em A, Dm Dm Fm7 G, C.

Can you say what the verse is and chorus etc as in

Verse Dm Fm C

Chorus Dm A

etc, thanks for reply tho Viz

viz

Well they are both nice progressions in the key of C. I thought of the first post as a chorus, and the 2nd post - I thought the first half was quite a nice bridge, and the 2nd half as a chorus with a big rall. at the end.

Phil_aka_Pip

I'd take a fairly simple approach: You've got a sequence of I IV & V chords mapped out over a number of bars. Try taking a bar of the IV chord and make it 2 beats of the vi chord followed by 2 beats of the IV chord. Similarly take a bar of the V chord and make it 2 beats of the ii chord followed by 2 beats of the V chord. Then mess about with the timing so that you get the same order of chord movements but spaced out differently. See if there's a place where you use the V chord but the melody note could also be supported by the iii or the vii chord. You might find several variations. One of which could be your chorus, another your bridge, and you could select out in interesting-sounding sequence for your intro.

Rayza1983

Phil_aka_Pip said:

I'd take a fairly simple approach: You've got a sequence of I IV & V chords mapped out over a number of bars. Try taking a bar of the IV chord and make it 2 beats of the vi chord followed by 2 beats of the IV chord. Similarly take a bar of the V chord and make it 2 beats of the ii chord followed by 2 beats of the V chord. Then mess about with the timing so that you get the same order of chord movements but spaced out differently. See if there's a place where you use the V chord but the melody note could also be supported by the iii or the vii chord. You might find several variations. One of which could be your chorus, another your bridge, and you could select out in interesting-sounding sequence for your intro.

Thanks for the advice, I checked out the Red Hot Chili Peppers Californication, most is in key of Aminor then changes to Amajor for the solo then back to Aminor. I got a good idea off that and I don't know why I haven't actually studied song structure before from actually songs. Think I'll be studying some more now