With the Chord Progression Player, you can create and listen to harmonies in real time. Interact with the instrument using the on-screen controls and your mouse. Alternatively, use specific keys on your computer keyboard if you work more quickley this way.
In short, it’s not just a theory tool but also a composition sandbox where you can see how chords moves together and how the individual voices lead from one chord to the next.
How to Use the Chord Progression Player
First, pull up the key dropdown and select your desired key (all twelve major and minor keys is included). Then decide whether you want to work with a major or harmonic minor scale to establish your harmonic palette. Finally, the widget will instantly create the seven diatonic chords based on your choice and present them as Roman numeral cards in the palette section. You’ll see the root note of each chord and its quality in your selected key so that you can easily see what’s at your disposal.
Clicking on a card from the palette adds that card to the runway underneath and creates a progression. Each card moves into the next available slot in the runway (up to eight), pushing the previous note out when a ninth is added. If you prefer, you can just use the numbers on your keyboard between one and seven to add each card by its scale degree to the sequence. It’s a quick way of building progressions without having to take your hands off the middle of your keyboard.
Each chord has a slot into which you can audition by either tapping the space bar when that slot is selected or by simply clicking it on the runway. You can delete a single chord by selecting the little lift button in the corner of each ones slot. There’s also a preset button that will load up a commonly used ii V I vi chord progression based off the current key. This lets you quickly compare and contrast the various voicings in different keys.
In terms of voicing, alter this to adjust which notes sits on top of each other in the chords. An open fifth is more spread out and gives a wider sound, whereas close positions keep the notes closer together. First inversion puts the third note of the chord in the bass, which changes how the root movement feels. You can choose to play it as a rising arpeggio pattern, as long tones, or as quarter pulses. This varies the feel of the textural playback.
A tempo slider allows you to dial in the pace at which the progression runs, between a modest 55BPM and a lively 150 BPM. A volume slider controls the main volume across all voices. Clicking on the send cadence button fires off the complete sequence. The widget will then play out along the runway from beginning to end, with each chord visually highlighted as it is heard.
Just below the runway, there is another window called voice leading. Here you can see which note makes up that chord including its octave position. It also shows the way the notes travel from one harmony to another in a clear grid format. Clicking on the nearest inversions button produces a more refined effect. It will take your progression and work out the best inversion of chords to make sure that voices does not have too great a leap from one chord change to another. What it does is draw a continuous line of sound, even if your progression contains wide leaps.
Quick navigation keyboard commands are provided. The voice leading improvement is turned on by pressing V on your keyboard. If you’re playing back what you’ve created, pressing Escape will halt it and reset the audio engine. With these shortcuts, you can easily work out your ideas without needing to go for the mouse each time.
Clicking on the fullscreen button will increase the size of the widget to fill your screen. This clears away any other things that might be cluttering up your page. It leaves more room for the voice leading and runway grid. You can also access a help panel by clicking on the how to play button; this will open a quick reference guide to all the controls.
Practice some harmonic minor progressions to use the raised seventh degree. For the minor key it will use harmonic minor (which means the seventh chord is diminished and the fifth chord is major). You will find that the algorithm deals with voice leading conflicts when you plot inversions of these chords onto a more complex progression. There’s also a sweep button where you can clear the runway completely and start again.
It fills that gap between what is written in abstract terms of harmonic theory and what it sounds like. It allows you to see the notes and hear how the inversion immediately works out in terms of color and smooth voice leading. The pre-set progressions give you a place to start from there and edit each slot for your personalized cadence. The instant feedback strengthens practical listening of the theoretical concepts.
Experiment with a variety of tempos and different types of motion. Arpeggios show you how the chords move around each other, whereas long tones work well if studying static harmony. Try open voicings with a quicker pace for something more moddern in style or close voicings at a slower tempo for that classic dense texture. With all the control options available, you can express yourself in many ways.
Start by selecting your most comfortable key. Build a basic 3 chord sequence and play it back. Check out the default voicing, then plot the closest inversion and listen again. Notice how much smoother it sounds. Play around with preset arcs, add extra chords to complete the runway and find alternative harmonic paths. It’s intended to be an intuitive widget; let the music flow instead of thinking about the mechanism.
Once you’ve added your initial chord, click the send the cadence button to hear the full sequence. You can then use the audition button to try out each harmony in isolation before committing to the complete sequence. Set the volume at a comfortable level and let the fun begin with the creation of your unique rhythm. It’s quick to refine and iterate and the interface responds immediately.