How To Write Phrygian Mode Chord Progressions

the frian mode has a distinctive intense and dark minor sound because of this frian is often used in metal music to provide an evil or exotic Edge listen to how it sounds here with the E Fran scale which has the notes e f g a b c and d compare this to the e natural minor / aolan mode you can see that there's one note of difference fshp this is the second scale degree of the natural minor scale in a frian mode this is a flat or minor second scale degree this note will be vital in defining the frian core progressions I'll show you later on it is what provides a lot of the distinctive frian mode sound you can use the notes from a scale or mode to create a series of chords these chords are what make up a key in songwriting the most basic chords are constructed with three notes and are called Triads they will be either major minor diminished or augmented let's use the E Fran scale I showed you earlier to construct some chords to create the first chord take the first note which is e here and then skip a note which takes you to G and then skip a note from G which gets you to B these three notes will create a Triad in this case e g and B create E minor this is the one chord then you move on to the next note and start again in E frian the next note is f if you skip a note from F you have a skip a note from a and you get to C F A and C create a F major chord this becomes your two chord you then repeat the process for the remaining notes of the frian mode to generate a set of seven chords note how I have repeated the notes twice here to make constructing the chords easy to visualize this gives you the following chords 1 E minor 2 F major 3 G major 4 a minor 5 b diminished 6 C major and 7 D Minor these are the dionic chords in the E frian key that is chords that are made purely with notes from the e frian scale e frian is a good key for guitar players because it has lots of chords that can be played as simple open chords it is also popular on the piano because you just use the white notes you can see that each of the dionic chords has a Roman numeral above it lower case indicates minor chords and uppercase major chords this helps you to understand core progressions as the Roman numerals can apply to any Fran key and simply indicate the function of the chords let's start building some frian mode core progressions now and look at how you can write your own critical to creating frian sounding core progressions is to use chords that have the flat or minor second note in them as you saw earlier this is the only note that is separating frian from aolon so if you want to make clear what mode you are in then keep coming back to chords with that defining note the basic frian Triads that have the flat second note in them are 2 5 and 7 let's start with a 1 2 1 7 progression [Music] a progression like this will fully anchor you in the frian mode this is because it goes from the tonic chord to chords that contain the flat second note that I have discussed it also mixes minor and major Triads nicely want some more keys to try out along with frian seven easy songwriting keys are available to make your core progression writing a breeze don't waste any more time searching go to Major keyc.com now and download your free guide today link is also in the description this next progression introduces the three chord the use of mainly major chords colors the sound of this progression but you still have the two chord to keep things frian note how the chords rise in number order this is referred to as the escalator effect this can also work in a descending Direction from high numbers to low numbers doing this is a great way to build up to a new song section or high point just be aware that the more you do it the less impact it has in a song here are a couple more common progressions that use ideas I've discussed so far to produce a frian sound listen out for the four chord in the second half introducing another minor chord to the sound [Music] pallet [Music] so far I've not used two chords in the examples five and six the sixth chord is a major chord which you are familiar with the five chord is a diminished chord diminished chords have an unsettled tension that makes them less common in popular major key songs listen to both of these chords in action in the next example also note the use of inversions of the one chord here you saw at the beginning of the video that each chord was constructed with three notes usually the lowest note in the chord is the root note where the chord letter comes from if you play one of the other notes as the lowest then you create a chord inversion each Triad has two possible inversions the bass note is indicated with the letter after the slash inversions are useful for creating interesting baselines with your core progressions I've started with a second inversion one chord to begin this progression this puts the B note as the lowest this creates a stepwise rising Baseline in the first half b c d e listen out for the sixth chord and also the difference between the second inversion one chord and the standard one chord in the second half of the progression I start with the diminished five chord listen how it doesn't sound out of place because it uses the same bass note as the second inversion one chord but it clearly has an unsettled tension the Baseline in the final four bars goes B A GF this utilizes a first inversion one chord to create a descending feel so far I've only used basic Triads in the frian progressions but you are of course free to use different chord types in your frian songs you can experiment with this on any of the chords but where it is particularly interesting is in introducing or emphasizing the flat second note from the mode as you understand now this will reinforce the frian sound there are many ways to do this so what I discuss here won't be exhaustive let's start by taking the three chord and turning it into a dominant seventh this adds the flat second note from the scale to the three chord major Triad here it is at the end of a progression see how it pulls you back to the one chord three of the chords in the the previous progression have a flat second note so there's no question that this is INF frian but one way you can emphasize this even more is by using the first inversion of the seven minor chord this puts the flat second note in the base of the seven chord to make it stand out in this example it leads into the two [Music] cord if you change the six chord into a sus four chord then it introduces the flat second to yet another chord the use of the sus 4 adds a completely different feeli to this progression which may not be associated with the frian sound I'll now put some of what you've learned into a full song example the song will feature cord durations that aren't just one per bar this will provide some more interest compared to the examples it has an introver Verse Chorus break Verse Chorus break chorus outro structure sections are generally four or eight bars to keep things simple but you can experiment with different lengths in your own song it starts in the intro with the one and two chords these set up the Frid sound for the song and anchors the listener in the key they also introduce the rhythmic setup that will run throughout the song the first two chords are heard for 1.5 beats or a dotted quarter note these offbeat changes bring some interesting syncopation to the progression then a brief 1B or quarter note chord is heard at the end of bar one this section ends with the three dominant seventh chord to draw us into the verse the verses Focus primarily on the minor chords they start with a second inversion four chord this shares a base not with the one chord E minor which is heard in the next bar this provides a pleasing beginning to the verse they are also one bar each to settle things down after the intro then the seven chord is heard before the signature rhythm is brought back this time using first inversion 4 Chord and second inversion one chords this means I get more mileage out of the three minor chords in the key but it also provides a descending Baseline for the verse from E to D to C to B the verse then repeats again but the final two chords are changed first is the diminished five chord this brings some pleasing discordance to the song but because it has the same bass note as the second inversion one chord from the fourth part of the verse it doesn't sound out of place the final chord this time uses the 7D minor this provides a step up leading towards the one chord E minor at the start of the chorus where the verse was minor focused the chorus is Major focused it has a slightly different rhythmic feel starting with the one chord for three beats or a dotted half note then the three major chords are heard to build a rising escalator to the first two bars then the chorus settles on the t five chord for a bar before stepping down to the four chord a minor the final beat of the fourth bar of the chorus uses a first inversion six chord to step back to the Basse note E of the one chord this whole thing repeats twice at the end of the chorus is a four bar break which is heard before the verse comes back in the break uses the rhythmic setup from the intro to continue this thread running through the song the whole bar chords two and three dominant 7th remain the same the difference is with the use of the six chord and the six sus 4 this brings a different feel to The Brak to separate it from the rest of the song the sections then repeat again until you get to the outro the first four bars of the outro are the same as the break the change comes in the final four bars after hearing C and C sus4 again the signature rhythm is used but this time with the one chord and the first inversion of the one cord this sets up a Rising 1 2 3 section to finish the song on some expectation the two chord alternates with the second inversion 2 to reinforce the Rhythm before ending again on the three dominant 7 and then the one chord follow along and listen to the different techniques and ideas and then have a go writing your own frigi and core [Music] progressions [Music] [Music] he [Applause] [Music] he [Music] [Applause] he [Music] you've learned how to write a cord progression but you need to be able to write the rest of a frian song watch the playlist on screen now to master frian mode songwriting

Channel: Write A Song

Views: 5,770

Keywords: songwriting, songwriting explained, how to write a song, write a song, write a song now, chord progressions, music theory

Id: UK5BEzx7YY0

Length: 14min 28sec (868 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 01 2023