Piano and guitar - chords

3 Great Ways to Use a Flat-VI Chord In Your Major Key Progressions

A flat-VI chord is a major chord built on the lowered 6th degree of a major scale. In C major, the 6th degree is A. Lowering it gives you Ab, and a major chord built on that note gives you the 3-note chord Ab-C-Eb: the so-called flat-VI. In pop music genres, the flat-VI chord quite […]

Piano - songwriting

How to Use Chords You Don’t Normally Find In a Key

I did a post recently dealing with categorizing chords to make them easier to use. We know that in any key, the I, IV and V-chords comprise what we call primary chords, and they are the most common ones you’ll find in most pop songs. Beyond those three, the ii, iii, vi and vii-chords are categorized as secondary chords, […]

Getting Creative with Chord Progressions: Adding Altered Chords

It’s practically impossible to create progressions that haven’t been used before. But altered chords will help. ____________ Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-eBook Bundle, and increase your song’s HIT potential. _____________ An altered chord is one that doesn’t naturally exist in the key of your song. The chords that naturally exist are the ones that you build on […]