10 Ways To Add ENERGY To BORING Chords

this is 10 ways to add energy to boring chords chords are the backbone to any song so you really don't want to mess this up let's jump into it this first trick is how to make your chords less cheesy by spreading the voices and adding accent notes let's take a cheesy set of chords [Music] these triads are in their most basic form and they sound a bit cheesy so what i like to do is take these middle notes in between each interval and put them up an octave but you'll notice we end up with a note that sticks out way on top of all of the other chords so i'm going to tuck that one back in because with chords whenever you have a dramatic change or shift in notes that could create cheesiness then the next thing i'm going to do is find a note that i could run through the entire chord pattern without changing and that's usually the tonic of the key signature that the chords are in so my chords are in g sharp major so i'm going to try to run g sharp major through my chord pattern this next trick is to change the articulation or in other words how the chords are played here we have a set of chords let's change the articulation [Music] sometimes it's not your chords that are boring it's the other supporting elements in the song [Music] watch what happens when i add a funky bass line to these boring chords [Music] this next trick helps remove repetitiveness from your chord pattern and it helps keep the chords interesting over the duration of the song let's listen to our chords [Music] these chords repeat every four bars so what i'm going to do is i'm going to change every other loop of the chord pattern so that it sounds slightly different than the one before it and i'm going to do this by squeezing in a chord wherever i think it sounds good so i'm just gonna shorten this one and just by squeezing in another chord here we should get a nice resolving sound [Music] this next trick is how to add dynamics to your chords so that they remain interesting over the entire duration of your song and we're going to do that by giving ourselves different articulations of these chords that we can use in different sections of the song so here's the main set [Music] [Laughter] [Music] so we have a nice mellow pad here let's give us something rhythmic and a little different [Music] [Laughter] [Music] add layers to your chords sometimes your sound just needs a little help next layer them again [Music] sometimes your chords are totally fine but your rhythm's wrong so change the rhythm so i'm going to do is shorten this chord sustain this first chord shorten this third chord [Music] and sustain this fourth chord watch this and it was that little change that added some serious swag to this drum and bass track [Music] keeping up with someone else next trick there is no more moving thing you can do then add expression to your chords in the transitions of your song in this track we have a transition right here so i'm going to take this layer now i'm going to automate the cutoff filter to open up on this transition so i'm going to turn on automation take this cut off knob and click it and i have a green automation line here controlling that cutoff filter i'm just going to open up these chords into that transition where they cut off here [Music] i'm going to do the same thing on the bass because the bass helps the chords we have our automation here let's engage it and then create a similar filter to what we have down there this next trick eliminates cheesiness with chord inversions anytime you have a chord pattern you want to avoid big changes in the notes so if we take this basic pattern here from this chord to this chord is only a change of a single step but from this chord to this chord that's a big change and from here to here is an even bigger change and so if we play this chord pattern back [Music] this chord makes the entire pattern sound cheesy so i'm going to invert this chord by taking this top note and pulling it down an octave so that now this chord is more tucked in to the entire pattern and what i just did is called a second inversion where i took the fifth of that triad and moved it down a whole octave so now the chord is rooted on the fifth so now if we play it back we get this sound this final trick is the trick i work hardest to get right and that is to use sounds that complement the emotion of your chords for example i have a sad set of chords here and i want to get the most emotion out of these chords as possible so here they are played with a basic stock piano [Music] and notice how by changing the sound of the piano to something more soft and emotional we get this sound [Music] i hope you guys enjoyed this video today is the last day that you could grab my free sample pack deep chill which includes vocals and drum samples it's at the top of the description below and stay tuned for next video

Channel: Alex Rome

Views: 5,512

Keywords: chords, chord patterns, how to make chords, avicii chords, edm chords, easy chords, chrds, chrd patterns, beginner chords, beginner chrds, music theory chords

Id: 8l7Id2FpcHw

Length: 8min 45sec (525 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 20 2021