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Do you have a melody in your head, but you don’t know how to come up with a chord progression for it? Well, that’s really too bad because there really is no way of learning how to come up with chords to your melody. Just kidding:)
There are people who can hear a melody and come up with chords on the spot. That magic is “learned” from constantly playing instruments, writing songs, and playing songs in a context of a band. I put “learned” in quotations because I don’t think it’s a conscious learning process. It just sort of happens.
But do not give up, because you don’t need to have this “super power” to find the chords to back up your melody. I’ll give you two ways: the long way and the not so long way. As you keep practicing this, the magic will become a part of you.
Trial and Error
For those who have just begun writing songs, you might use the first way which is all trial and error. Try playing different chords over a section of a melody. Keep doing this until you find a chord that actually fits your melody.
What will help quicken this process is to find the key of your song. This will significantly narrow down the number of chords to choose from. When trying to find the key, you might lose your melody, so before you start, record your melody on a cassette recorder or on your computer. After you record it, play it as a loop and finger through each scale until you find the key that sounds and feels right with your melody. Trust your ears.
After you know your key, you can try each chord with your melody and through trial and error you will figure out the chords. You will listen for the chords that fit.
Forming Chords Using The Notes In The Melody
The second way is finding the notes of your melody and forming chords around the notes. This requires you to know the notes on your instruments. I prefer doing this on the piano since the pattern of notes on the piano is more organized than the guitar. It may also be helpful to write down the notes of your melody to see note patterns that can be fit into a chord.
When coming up with your chords through this method, make sure you work on a section of a melody at a time. You may split each song section into 4 parts. This will help the task seem less daunting. It’s really not that bad especially since songs have repeating sections. So you really only have to come up with chords for around three sections.
So let’s say that the first part of your verse used the notes D – E – F# – A, then you could say that the chord for this melody is ‘D’ because the notes D – F# – A makes up the D chord. Then maybe what followed were the notes G – D – C# – B – D; then the G chord would be the winner since the G chord is made up of the notes G – B – D.
You don’t need all the notes of the chord triad in the melodic line to use it.
For example, the melody D – E – F# – A – G – D – C# – B – D doesn’t have to be confined to the chords D and G. The section D – E – F# can be paired up with the Gmaj7 chord and the note A can be paired with the D chord. The notes involved in the chord Gmaj7 are G – B – D – F#. The sequence D – E – F# contains two notes from Gmaj7 which allows the two to work together. Also, you don’t have to play an actual Gmaj7 chord on the instrument that is accompanying the melody. All you really need is a G chord and the F# in the melody will automatically help shape the Gmaj7 chord.
The ‘A’ after the D – E – F# works with the D chord since it is the third note of the D triad (D – F# – A)
Another option for the melody set G – D – C# – B – D is the chords ‘Em7’ and ‘G’. G – D – C# – B can be paired with Em7 (E – G – B – D) since the notes G, D, and B are a part of the chord. ‘D’ can be paired with G since the note is a part of the G triad (G – B – D).
This process might take a while to get into your songwriting system. But when it starts to ‘click’ for you, it’ll be an invaluable tool for your songwriting process.