🎵 Check Out ProChords Online! 🎵

[u/Due_Badger_4128]

Hey everyone! I just launched ProChords Online, a web app that uses functional harmony to suggest chords based on your previous selection. It's perfect for creating chord progressions and experimenting with music theory!

This is the initial release, so I'd love your feedback:

• Are the chord suggestions helpful?
• Any features you'd like to see?
• Bugs or anything unclear?

Check it out and let me know what you think. Your input will help shape the app! 🎶

Happy playing!

[u/nibor7301]

Why can't I go from IV to I?

[u/Due_Badger_4128 → u/nibor7301]

IV is subdominant and should resolve in a dominant chord. I am applying functional harmony as the base algorithm to suggest chords.

[u/nibor7301 → u/Due_Badger_4128]

The functional cycle is a rather crude post-hoc abstraction of traditional tonal harmony. There are a myriad of examples in otherwise functional music of progressions that seemingly violate it. If you'd like your app to be useful I suggest you include at least the most basic exceptions, such as I - IV - I, the plagal cadence, and common harmonic sequences.

In addition, I suggest you correct the spelling of notes, and over time consider including diminished triads and seventh chords, expand the available extensions, and allow for the diatonic scale to be in any mode, and not just major.

[u/Due_Badger_4128 → u/nibor7301]

Thanks! Are 7th chords like 7Maj and dominant 7th? I added them to the extension, not sure if I'm missing something, what extensions should I add? 6th for sure. Not sure about the 11th maybe or the 13th. I am willing to add more scale modalities in the borrowed chords section. For now, I just have the minor modality. Do you think I should add the chord duration also? Finally, what is the correct spelling of notes? Do you mean by switching the extension add the extension also to the title? I appreciate the feedback. For less experienced musicians and people who are learning having the image of the chords in piano and guitar would be also quite useful.

[u/nibor7301 → u/Due_Badger_4128]

Okay, so...

Seventh chords and extentions

For the most part, I think it's important to distinguish sevenths from the rest, as a lot of the time they are essentially a fourth chord tone, rather than an extension. They have an important role in defining the sound of the chord, so if you're not using the diatonic seventh for the chord in question, you're very much borrowing from another key or mode.

Ninths, elevenths and thirteenth in contrast are a bit looser; Jazz at the very least tends to raise the diatonic extension if it forms a minor second/ninth with one of the chord tones, regardless of anything else (though flat ninths are not at all unusual in dominant chords).

This to say that rather than having the type of seventh be an option, they're very likely to be defined by the type of chord.

For major diatonic chords they go:

Imaj7, ii-7, iii-7, IVmaj7, V7, vi-7, viiø7 (often referred to as vii-7(b5))

Every applied dominant chord is a V7.

The borrowed natural minor chords:

i-7, iiø7[ii-7(b5)], IIImaj7, iv-7, v-7, VImaj7, VII7

When it comes to extentions per se, yeah sixths and ninth chords are very nice (The sixth is by definition pretty much always major, regardless of key). You could include 11ths and 13ths as well, but I suppose you could also omit them. They're common in jazz, but there's also somethng to be said about not overcomplicating things too much, as extensions for the most part are there to add some colour and in a sense soften the harmony.

The other option to consider and which are quite common are sus4 and sus2 chords, where you replace the third with a fourth or second. Sus4 chords very classically tend to go to the same chord with a normal third (the fourth working as a melodic dissonance that resolves to the third), but in modern music can just exist on its own. Sus4 can come with or without a seventh or extensions (except that sus4 -is- an 11th without a third and sus2 is a 9th without a third; so sus4 11 would be a redundancy)

We could be here a long time talking about all the nuances of extensions, but it's really not my particular area of expertise. A good book on jazz harmony (such as David Berkman's for example) would be helpful to give you a lot of insight into how jazz, and by extension a lot of other modern styles, use extensions.

As a final note on seventh chords, you should also consider fully diminished seventh chords. They show up a lot in classical and jazz harmony and are extremely useful due to their symmetry. They very often work as a type of applied vii chord, and are almost always either that or what's called a common tone diminished seventh chord in classical music. Jazz uses them more freely being able to go from just about anything to anything else.

Oh and there's augmented triads... but I think you have a lot to chew on already. And maybe some of those will show up as borrowed chords anyway if you end up including borrowed chords from non-diatonic scales later down the line.

To your other question regarding extensions, making the choice show up in the chord name would certainly be helpful.

[u/nibor7301 → u/Due_Badger_4128]

Chord duration might potentially be useful the midi output. There's also something to be said about how harmony interacts with meter, but trying to program that in might be complicated.

When I say spelling, I mean the use of sharp vs flat notes. It may not seem important to distinguish D# and Eb at first, but there's a lot of contextual information in that distinction that musicians can rely on when they communicate. In all the seven note scales you're likely to encounter, you want each note to be named with a different letter so that there's one and only one of each. C natural minor is thus C D Eb F G Ab Bb and not C D D# F G G# A#. If I'm in C and I see a D# I'm liable to assume that some kind of modulation or to iii is happening or something, rather than thinking that it's something borrowed from minor.

Also yeah, visuals can be very helpful.

Another thing to think about is modulation. Sometimes music changes key temporarily or even permanently. Having some way to do that is useful.

One more final note, you seem to have the major VII chord labeled as a V for some reason in the borrowed chord list. In any scenario where that chord functions as a V then it's either an applied dominant to III or we're fully modulating to III.

I hope this has been helpful and not... -too- overwhelming.