Finding new, refreshing chord progressions

[rick-slo]

Don't be bound by "rules". Basically use your ears. Practice being more chromatically free than diatonic bound. Do on the fly experiments creating "new" chords and chord sequences. Do those type of experiments on some simple tunes.

[Mr. Jelly]

Easy exercise here;

Play a twelve barre blues or a I - V vamp then try these different endings. Substitute 7ths for minors for a rag type feel.


ii, V, I


vi, ii, V, I


iii, vi, ii, V, I

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Monsum

I'm not a beginner guitarist but I feel like I'm often stuck with the same unoriginal, cliche chord progressions.
How do you stay away from boring repetitions of I, iii, IV and V chords?
All ideas, suggestions, techniques are welcome.

Hi Monsum

A - I don't avoid songs because they only have I, iii, IV & V chords (or ii & vi chords either) - I just figure out more creative ways to play those chords or progressions.

B - I find others to play with who are better than me, and I learn from bring with them. They fuel my creativity.

C - I listen to/watch (YouTube) musicians who are much different than me.

[Monsum]

Thank you guys for all the comments and advice, especially to JonPR and mattbn73 for very informative posts. Really appreciate it. It will take some time to absorb it but most of the points you made, ring a bell and I think I've come across them before.

Some of the things you mentioned I've already been using successfully like inversions and adding colour to chords (sus2, sus4, 7th etc.). I do a lot of experimenting with chords but it gets frustrating at times when it takes you a while to find a next chord which is not a typical one and still makes sense within the structure of the chords.

I've recently discovered Greg Koch trying out (and selling) acoustic guitars on youtube but I love the stuff he plays and that would be my goal - to be able to make interesting and musical rhythm guitar parts, here is an example of his playing:

[raggedymike]

There is a course on Truefire called "Fingerboard Breakthrough" taught by Howard Morgen. In it he says that he considers his job as a musician is to "find the moving line" and accentuate/enhance it. Some of the course will certainly be too simple for someone who has been playing for 30 years, but the insights he provides are well worth the price of the course (esp if you get it on sale).

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Monsum

Since you like this, then the thing to do IMO is to figure it out (at least part of it) and play it. A m7th chord here and there, caged system chord changes, etc.. With the video should not take long.

[BFD]

Originally Posted by Monsum

....I've recently discovered Greg Koch trying out (and selling) acoustic guitars on youtube but I love the stuff he plays and that would be my goal - to be able to make interesting and musical rhythm guitar parts, here is an example of his playing....

I've watched numerous GK/Wildwood videos and I think his goal is to demo several different playing styles on a given guitar. IMO, he's generally playing parts of a number of tunes or licky things he knows well, with a little bit of improvising. You'll hear some of his stuff more than once if you listen to a bunch of their demos. I wouldn't call any given demo a musical piece, per se, and I doubt he would either. If that's your goal though, you might want to approach it the same way - learn a bunch of tunes (or parts of them) and then run them together.

[BigMamaJ40]

There’s always the devil’s playground of alternate tunings.

[Wyllys]

Originally Posted by raggedymike

There is a course on Truefire called "Fingerboard Breakthrough" taught by Howard Morgen. In it he says that he considers his job as a musician is to "find the moving line" and accentuate/enhance it. Some of the course will certainly be too simple for someone who has been playing for 30 years, but the insights he provides are well worth the price of the course (esp if you get it on sale).

Much good advice from many directions. I quote this post regarding the "moving line" approach. I use three moving lines:

Melody

Bass

Interior/color/shade

I find voicings which give me the sound(s) I want/like and flow together well. Once I have something I like, I'll recognize the name of the chord/inversion, but the technical classification of the notes as a chord is secondary to the sound...in the beginning.

After some time and a goodly number of tunes, I find replicable patterns/fingerings/progressions emerging. But I also find that additional discoveries in new pieces are "backwards compatible" with everything which has gone before.

Listening to a lot of versions of the same body of tunes is very helpful. It's a lot easier/cheaper to use YouTube than buying vinyl like the old days.

[scriv58]

https://www.homespun.com/shop/produc...-styles-dvd-1/

This dvd covers good ground on chord progressions and using their inversions to create melody

[Jack the Pearl]

A very interesting discussion. I know so little music theory that this may actually improve my playing. Thanks, folks.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by Monsum

I'm not a beginner guitarist but I feel like I'm often stuck with the same unoriginal, cliche chord progressions.
How do you stay away from boring repetitions of I, iii, IV and V chords?
All ideas, suggestions, techniques are welcome.

The finest musician's there's ever been have spent their entire careers trying to answer the above and they called it Jazz, which you don't like .

But you post a video of the kind of 'original' progression you do like, well it's original because it doesn't sound at all musical, I mean, I wouldn't listen to it twice.

[standup]

Think about modal progressions. Usually just 2 or 3 chords you’re moving between, but sounds different from your I-IV-V Kinda things. Be aware of the modal scale connected to those chords, and use it in the melody.

It’s easier than that may sound.

I’ve enjoyed Eric Haugen’s videos on this topic, looking, for example, at chord progressions in Dorian and Lydian modes I think. Check it out, once you grasp it it’s not complicated.

[mr. beaumont]

Write your melodies first, then find the chords that suit them.

Our ears tend to be more adventurous melodically when not trying to fit things to a frame.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Monsum

I'm not a beginner guitarist but I feel like I'm often stuck with the same unoriginal, cliche chord progressions.
How do you stay away from boring repetitions of I, iii, IV and V chords?
All ideas, suggestions, techniques are welcome.

Learn fingerstyle and free yourself from chord jail.