chord progressions

learning chords at the mo to play over the beat, but id like to learn the theory of how these fit together, for example I am playing a nice chord progression of Bmin7 A#dim7 Emin9 Gmaj7 but how do these relate to each other and how could I make another progression like this using a scale or XYZ?

well your currently in the key of Bminor/D major. A good place to start is to look at the notes in the scale of Bminor and base your next progression on any of those. Your using some pretty semi-exotic chords at the moment, so theres no need for a keychange or anything to fancy like that.

The most common chord to start your next progression would be the 4th note of that scale which is Eminor, or the 5th note F#major(or minor)7

Those are just some common progressions. You dont have to conform to these "common rules", but it gives an idea of where to go with your next chord combination.

Hope that helped...

cheers, and how did you come up with the 4th note in the scale for the next part, , please forgive me, I used to know but had a major illness and my memory is gone so looking to learn again.

also do you know how the circle of 5ths works?

robertG wrote:also do you know how the circle of 5ths works?

why yes i do

http://www.zentao.com/guitar/theory/circle.html

thanks

yeah im just looking to make chords fit together using theory rather than my ears. but do not know how to do this, for example when you see the Roman numerals as a steady guide for a chord progression...

IE blues I IV V that fits nicely, where else can I get this info where in heinsight it may say a nice progression is I IV V X Y Z......?

Rob

robertG wrote:cheers, and how did you come up with the 4th note in the scale for the next part, , please forgive me, I used to know but had a major illness and my memory is gone so looking to learn again.

yeah, i just looked at the key, and if the B note is the root note(as in I), then you just count up till the IVth note like so

Bminor scale:

I II III IV V
B C# D E F# etc..

The most common change up is going to the 4th, as it sounds the most distingishable but still fits in the key.

hope that helped again.

and im sorry to hear about your major illness, and i hope its been taken care of!.

a guitar guide which includes very informative music theory chapters

oh, I forgot:
http://www.essentialguitar.com/

yeah, i just looked at the key, and if the B note is the root note(as in I), then you just count up till the IVth note like so

Bminor scale:

I II III IV V
B C# D E F# etc..

The most common change up is going to the 4th, as it sounds the most distingishable but still fits in the key.

hope that helped again.

and im sorry to hear about your major illness, and i hope its been taken care of

cheers guv, day at a time

oh, I forgot:
http://www.essentialguitar.com/

Nice, getting a guitar on friday so that will help on the old theory side of things as originally a guitarist.

To elaborate on what j danials said..

The degrees of a scales have a few different names:

There's the roman numerals that refer to the chord quality (maj, min, dim, ect.)

Then there's the function: tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant (superdominant) and leading tone

When you want to know what basic chords to play over a scale or melody, think numerals.
Maybe you know this already, but when you take each degree of the scale and put the third note up from it above it, then take the third note from THAT note and put it above the 2nd note and do this for every note in the scale, you get different qualitiy triad for each note you built this on. it's called "diatonisizing"

That means that all the notes you just used to build those chords are all in the scale you derived them form so long as we're talking major and minor scales. There's a couple exceptions but this applies almost 100%

Anyshits, back to functions:

You could also just number the functions: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-octave but those function names give a clue as to how lots of progressions work.

A really basic rule of thumb is simply:

Tonic goes anywhere

2's like 4's and 6's

3's like 6's

4's like 2's and 6's

5's like everything

6's like 3's

leading tones like tonics, 5's, sometimes 2's and sometimes 4's

and everything likes 5's

Hope that helps.

Wish I could contribute, but you guys seem to have it down.