Hi, Lee. Cracking website – thanks for making the effort and putting it out there.
My question: Having put together a four-chord sequence, are there any rules that dictate where the sequence might go from there? Should I write a melody line that passes chord four and gives me a clue?
I can find a chord five that fits but the sixth is another matter… 🙁
Cheers, Gary.
Hi Gary. Thank you.
This is very hard to answer, there’s just too many variables. To some extent you could just use any chord you like. Writing the melody first, as you say, and allowing that to dictate the next chord is probably a good idea.
There are formulas, kind of, but they can be complex and if I’m honest, I’d need to do a fair bit of revision to remember them.
Just using your ears and imagination is probably best, based around the melody.
I’m actually struggling here to give a decent answer 🙂
Could you tell me the chords you have so far?
Lee, thanks for your prompt response.
I knocked up a pic of chord shapes but can’t post them so (according to a chord-finder website) they are:
Em [7th fret], D6 [5th fret], Am maj 7 [5th fret] and then little finger up to B on the 7th fret (on and off twice) to make the (9).
It’s actually an intro so in my first post I should have said bass line rather than melody. I’ve decided to wimp out and look for two four-note arpeggios that will enable me to play the above chords twice. Then I’ll worry about how to get into the main body of the song…
Strumming pattern is similar to ‘Another brick in the wall’. Play it slow or finger pick and it sounds like ‘Hotel California’ !!!
Cheers, Gary.
The AmM7 is quite unstable so without hearing how you are playing it, it’s a bit hard to tell. If you want to get back to the Em perhaps try something like Bm7 / B to lead back.
Some things to think about. D6 is essentially Bm7 inverted. B is the 5th of E so it’s an obvious choice for leading into E.
The key could possibly be thought of as D major or E dorian or E minor possibly. Maybe even G major. The AmM7 doesn’t quite belong so depends whether you think of it as minor or major, probably depends on how long you let it ring out. I would first figure out what key you feel like it should be. If E minor feels like home then it’s probably E minor or E dorian, depending on what you are doing with the A chord.
Try messing around with chords belonging to those keys and see if anything works, might give you some more ideas to work with.
D major / E dorian chords
https://www.guitar-chords.org.uk/chords-key-d.html
G major / E minor chords
Thanks, Lee. Will give those a go and let you know what happens.
Cheers, Gary.
