Introduction
If you listen to your favourite pop songs you’ll hear a repeating chord pattern throughout them. The comedy sketch Four Chords by Axis of Awesome demonstrates it perfectly, and is very entertaining!
Chords
Chords are the first thing generated when you start a new track in my free app Seed:Loops . The “Chords” screen shows you the progression detailing the chord name and number. The first chord is always the tonic (first note in the scale) chord or an inversion (notes stacked in a different order) of it. For major scales this will be the I chord, and for minor scales the i chord.
The “Loops” screen better visualises the notes. Here the first chord is A minor over C, so the stacked notes from bottom to top are C, E & A.
Inversions
The second chord is also an inversion, this time Emin/B so the notes are B, E & G. The inversions slider determines how many notes are reordered to join common notes together, in this case the E is common to both chords.
If you keep sliding some chord progressions will add a suspended chord (Dsus4 in this instance) to transition between them.
Reducing the slider all the way down to zero removes all inversions and suspended chords leaving you with the chord root at the bottom (A/C/E, E/G/B etc..).
Major and Minor Chords
This chord progression has three minor chords and one major chord. You can change this by using the mix slider. The below example shows you the progression for this seed with two minor and two major chords.
Rhythm
Each seed will choose a random instrument. If the instrument plays a sustained note then it will default to only playing on the downbeat of each bar. If you want a different rhythm then select where you want notes to be generated and cycle through some seed to find a pattern you like.
Other Loops
Your chord progression underpins all the loops you add (except drums). It is used when you add a melody or bassline to derive notes that will work with it, and arpeggios are directly tied to them. If you amend your chord progression it will regenerate your other loops too.
Download
Seed:Loops is a free app available on Android from Google Play .