MELODY WORKSHOP

Creating a chord progression is the first step in making a melody. By definition, a chord is a group of three or more notes used to create the base of a harmony. Here are chord progression tricks for making awesome melodies.

Piano-Style Keyboards
Writing chord progressions with piano style keyboards is super handy. If the chord progression sounds good on a piano, then it will most likely sound good later when it’s distorted for edm.

Scale Plugin
Under Midi effects is a scale plugin. The scale plugin will force the chords to always land in the right key. There are also presets in the scale plugin that you can use. The scale plugin is super useful for cleaning up the mess and mistakes.

Inverting Chord Progressions
The most basic chord progression sequence is the rise of notes up the keyboard. But you don’t want to be basic. The trick here is inverting the chords will make the notes closer together and sound more natural.

Invert a chord by taking the top note and dropping it an octave. Try doing this with the second, third and fourth note in the harmony. In ableton there is an awesome keyboard shortcut for moving notes up and down an octave. Select the note, hold shift and press up or down. This keyboard shortcut will help you invert notes in the chord progression quicker.

Triad
The triad is commonly made with the left hand of the piano player. Make a triad by reusing inverted or bottom notes from the chord progression. Move the notes down an octave or so and adjust them as needed. The triad notes can have different depth than the original notes in the chord progression.

Also experiment making another triad using the top notes from the chord progression. Copy and paste the top notes up an octave or so and adjust as needed.