Candidate Chords

Candidate Chord Theory

If you’ve ever wondered why certain chords always show up together in song after song, this course is for you!  This course explains where chords come from (scales) and how to figure out the best ‘candidates’ when you already know something about a tune, but you want to figure the rest of the details.  For example, if you know the key of the song then you can easily figure out the most likely major and minor chords by following the guided steps in this course.

Where You’ll Start…

We’ll start things off by discussing what candidate chords are, how to take advantage of musical patterns using numerals and then we’ll explore the method.  As we look at how candidate chords can be applied to writing songs and composition, songwriters will be empowered to write more interesting (unexpected) chord progressions that still sound great.  For players who just want to learn songs more quickly, this course is a primer on improving your ability to pick chords up by ear (and using music theory).

Demystifying Chord Progressions

It’s a common challenge… you know a few chords in a song, but you can’t figure out one here and there to complete the song.  It’s aggravating!  Music theory (applied to chords) makes quick work of this problem.  This course will explain how to figure out which chords are the best ‘candidates’ for your missing chord AND provide you with a well-rounded understanding of WHY chords sound better together.  We’ll also discuss the concept of ‘fingerprint’ chords and see how details within a chord’s quality can also give us useful clues for reverse engineering a song’s key, chords and scales.

When You’re Finished…

By the time you’re finished with this course and it’s project exercise, you’ll be prepared to (1) write better songs – with your own interesting chord progressions, (2) identify the chords being used in other songs that you want to learn and (3) enjoy a more confident deeper understanding of how and why chords fit together.