The Chopin Trick for Awesome Chord Progressions
Last week, I analyzed Chopin’s Prelude in E Minor with a student. What a roller coaster of a chord progression.
Just when you think you know where the harmony is going, Chopin throws another chordal curveball at ya. The piece is chock full of modulations and deceptive cadences…but it still flows!
How does he do it? How can something so complex sound so elegant?
The answer is smooth voice leading, i.e. the way in which individual voices move from chord to chord.
Now, good voice leading is a topic that needs far more real estate than this email can provide. But take a look at how Chopin changes one voice at a time—often by a half step—to gradually shift the tonality.
You can do this, too, to come up with new and interesting chord progressions that sound complex yet smooth, with soft tannins and rich flavors of currant.
Try this:
Play a triad, major or minor, in any inversion. Let’s use: E G C (C Major in first inversion).
Lower one of the notes by a half step: E G B.
Lower another note by a half step: E F# B.
Lower another note by a half step: D# F# B.
Boom! We just gracefully modulated from C Major to B Major in four chords. This short progression could easily be looped to create a song, and it took very little effort to get the harmonic ball rolling.
Experiment with this technique. It may not sound amazing every single time you lower one of the notes, but mess around with it, and you’ll be coming up with your own Chopin-esque tonal curveballs in no time.
Now, eventually you’re gonna want to play chords other than triads and move voicings around more than a half step at a time. That’s where my voicing pack, Sick Chords Volume 1, comes in.
Sick Chords Vol. 1 is your secret weapon for learning the kinds of jazz chords you’ve always wanted to know how to play. The book contains over a hundred voicings for Major 7, Minor 7, and Dominant 7 chord types, which you can implement in any key.
Here’s what Jason J. had to say about his experience with Sick Chords:
“My brain is exploding with the possibilities you have available in these books. Thanks man!”
If you want your brain to explode with chords, too, get your hands on Sick Chords here:
https://go.jeffschneidermusic.com/sick-chords-volume-1
Now go make some music!
Jeff
