chord progressions.

by em - September 13, 2018

i use a piano/keyboard or ukulele to write the chords to my songs, but the ukulele is a little more confusing to explain the chords and tabs to, so im going to use piano chords to teach you how to make a chord progression for your song.
im not a very good at teaching anything, so this is assuming you already know how to play piano, or at least have an understanding of the notes and keys. if you dont know how to play or want to know which keys are which, there are lots of youtube videos online to teach you, such as learn piano keys and notes - piano keyboard diagrams by piano keyboard guide. another really helpful website is pianochord.org.
a lot of people teach chord progressions in roman numerals, but my personal preference is to just say the chord name ( i.e. c, dm, bb, etc. ). i picked up using chords from using a website called megachords, but its since closed down, so now i use an app called Ultimate Guitar: Chords & Tabs. unfortunately it doesnt have piano chords on it, but there are websites where they have the piano chords for the songs (e-chords.com, 8notes.com, zebrakeys.com)
something important to remember is your finger position. with your right hand, your thumb is finger one, pointer is two, middle is three, ring is four, and pinkie is five. with your left hand (if you plan on playing the melody while playing the chords you'll be using your left hand to play the chords) its the opposite, so your pinkie being one, ring being two, middle being three again, pointer being four, and thumb being five. when you play 3 note chords, you will use your first, second, and third fingers, no matter which hand you use.

now onto the actual chords, there's a lot of options. here's list of all the chords you should know and remember.