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Hi, I'm Pedro, and welcome back.
Today we're diving into a topic 

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that stripped me up more times 
than I can count, creating chord

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progressions from scratch. 
You know when you want to start 

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a musical idea with a chord 
progression, but your mind just 

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draws a blank? 
Starting anything from scratch 

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can be tough, but here's the 
twist. 

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While we often want to escape 
using the same chord 

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progressions everyone else does,
those very chord progressions 

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can be the perfect starting 
point. 

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They give us a foundation to 
build on, and from there we can 

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transform them into something 
fresh and unique. 

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Hopefully, these following tips 
will help you break out of your 

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creative slumber. 
It's worked for me, and I think 

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it can work for you too, so 
stick around. 

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There's a reason why common card
progressions are, well, so 

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common. 
It's because they work. 

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It's progressions like the 1451 
or a 6451 that are great for 

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getting the ball rolling and you
can even try to play them in 

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different order like this. 
And just like that, now you have

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a structure to work with. 
If you just stick with these, it

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is likely that you'll get bored 
or feel like you're not going 

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places with the Harmony because 
you're probably looking for 

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something a bit more unique. 
But don't get me wrong, if you 

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have a killer idea that works 
perfectly with one of these 

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progressions, then by all means 
go for it. 

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Let me show you how I go about 
mangling these chord 

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progressions to squeeze 
something fresh out of them. 

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OK, so for our first technique, 
let's use those simple chord 

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progressions as guide posts. 
And what I mean is that we will 

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use them as a foundation for 
longer sections of music. 

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In this example, we'll just use 
this 451 throughout 8 bars, 

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including the silent sections 
for now. 

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The trick is to use these chords
as anchor points in a larger 

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progression as a way to keep a 
good overall sense of harmonic 

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direction. 
And now to bring in more flavor 

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and have more harmonic movement,
I will be inserting some chords 

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between them. 
For the sake of simplicity, I 

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will just be picking chords from
the C major key. 

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See how I've kept the main 
chords, the one, the four and 

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the five, but added some extra 
steps to make the journey more 

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interesting. 
And again, I use these common 

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chords to create a road map 
guiding me through the harmonic 

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context that I'm creating. 
Another cool trick to try is to 

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keep the same distance between 
chords, but starting on a 

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different home chord. 
This means that I'll be 

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transposing the entire 
rogression while staying within 

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the same key. 
Let's say we have this 1251 

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going. 
And now let's transpose the 

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whole thing a fourth down, 
meaning that we will start on G 

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instead of C and so on, but keep
the same interval distance from 

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chord to chord. 
This can give you a completely 

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different vibe. 
Choosing a different home chord,

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of course, should be in keeping 
with the type of vibe you are 

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also exploring, so take that in 
consideration. 

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All right, let's get into chord 
substitutions. 

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This is where things start to 
get really interesting. 

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The idea here is that you can 
replace a chord with another 

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chord that has a similar 
function within the key. 

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In other words, you can replace 
a chord with its median or sub 

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median 1/3 above or below, 
respectively. 

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Let's take our Guru 1451, which 
now can sound like this. 

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As you heard, I substituted the 
first two chords and capped the 

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last two, and all of a sudden 
there is a new subtle twist in 

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this familiar chord progression.
You can also expand progressions

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by adding more chords, and you 
can do that using functional 

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harmony through secondary 
dominance or other credential 

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devices to lead you to a target 
chord of your choosing. 

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I've put links in the 
description that will take you 

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to the appropriate blog posts 
explaining everything in case 

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you don't follow what's going to
happen. 

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I'm just going to briefly go for
the possibilities as this is not

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necessarily something that you 
would do everywhere. 

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So let's pick our last chord 
progression with the chord 

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substitutions. 
We will start with E minor, but 

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before we go to D minor, I want 
to target it with another chord.

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In this case, I implied a minor 
plagal cadence using AG minor. 

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Then I also targeted the G major
with the secondary dominant D9 

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chord. 
And after that, I used yet 

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another minor plagal cadence 
with the F minor going to the 

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target C And finally I used 
another secondary dominant in 

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the form of a tritone 
substitute, the F7 to return to 

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E minor. 
You could really go over the top

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with this one. 
Just consider this if you have a

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secondary dominance A5 chord. 
Basically it means that before 

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that you can also experiment 
with adding a 2 chords, a minor 

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2 or a tritone substitute for 
that minor 2 chords. 

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Not to mention that you can try 
also different cadences to lead 

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you to different target chords. 
So you see where this is going. 

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This approach has a certain 
sound to it, and it's up to you 

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to decide if that's the type of 
harmonic sound that your music 

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will need. 
Now that we got some nice chords

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going from the previous 
exploration, why not take some 

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of them and experiment with 
putting them in a different 

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order without thinking about 
their function? 

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Just think about the chord 
colors that may sound nice when 

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played after the other. 
In this case, I like the sound 

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of going from G minor to D minor
and then the F7 to return to E 

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minor. 
Changing the base note of a 

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chord can completely transform a
simple chord progression by 

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smoothing out the voice leading 
and add a touch of harmonic 

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elegance. 
So instead of just playing the 

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root note of each chord in the 
base, try adding a note that 

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would serve you better to get to
the next chord. 

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Let me pick up this 5241 chord 
progression and try out some 

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chording versions. 
You can do it when the chord is 

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played, but also as a way of 
adding movement between chords. 

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This way you will also be 
thinking more melodically in 

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terms of how the baseline moves.
And finally, don't forget about 

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the good old pedal notes. 
That can be very helpful in 

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creating nice harmonic colors 
and ambiences if that's your 

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goal. 
And don't forget to try out 

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different base notes, as the 
harmonic colors can shift 

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drastically. 
Modal interchange is the fancy 

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term for borrowing chords from 
parallel modes. 

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This is a great way to add some 
unexpected color to your 

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harmonies. 
For example, we are in the key 

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of C major, so you could borrow 
chords from another key where C 

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exists and insert them in our 
previous chord progression. 

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In this case, I borrowed from C 
minor. 

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Or you can take it even further 
and replace all the chords 

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except for your home chord with 
the respective chord degrees of 

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the parallel key you'll be 
borrowing from Indiana. 

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The following example we will be
replacing chords using the key 

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of B flat major or from C 
Dorian. 

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You could also experiment with 
picking one other chord not to 

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replace. 
The idea is to keep a surprise 

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in the chord progression. 
This time, let's keep the last 

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chord as we borrow from C 
Phrygian or a flat major, 

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or don't replace the second 
chord. 

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So there you have it, a few 
simple strategies for breaking 

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through harmonic blocks using 
common chord progressions as a 

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starting point. 
To recap, we talked about using 

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these common chord progressions 
as guideposts for longer chord 

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structures, transposing the 
chord progression within the 

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same key, chord substitutions 
and secondary dominance, and 

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exploring our harmonic palettes 
using the newfound chords, using

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chord inversions, creating new 
baselines, using pedal notes, 

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and also added modal interchange
to the mix. 

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The beauty of this approach is 
that it gives you a starting 

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point, a framework to build 
upon. 

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From there, you can let your 
creativity run wild and explore 

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all sorts of harmonic 
possibilities. 

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I highly encourage you to try 
this as an exercise. 

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Don't be afraid to experiment. 
And you never know, one of those

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ideas might just make it into 
your next song. 

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If you want to dive deeper in 
chord progressions, check out 

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the Beyond Music Theory ebook 
and the online course Creating 

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Unique Chord Progressions. 
The links, as usual, are in the 

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description. 
And as always, don't forget to 

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like and subscribe for more 
ideas like this. 

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Thanks for listening and until 
next time.