Produce more compelling music by harnessing the underlying emotional power of chords and harmony.
Why do some songs tug on our heartstrings while others fall flat? Conveying moods and emotions is a key element of making great music, and doing it well requires a deep understanding of chords and harmony. It's what allows modern music producers and songwriters to convey a sense of danger, triumph, or melancholy.
This six-week course will show you how to craft compelling chord progressions in your music. We'll analyze the chords used in music from across the contemporary landscape, and equip you to use them in your own productions and compositions. You'll be challenged to write your own mood-setting music by creating tracks for topliners, TV ads, film trailers, and more. By the end of this course, you'll be able to harness more interesting chord progressions to provoke powerful emotional reactions in your listeners.
If you're looking for our more advanced harmony course The Creative Power of Advanced Harmony, click here.
Ethan Hein is an adjunct professor of music technology at NYU and Montclair State University, and a founding member of the NYU Music Experience Design Lab, under the leadership of Alex Ruthmann. You can follow all his explorations of music theory, music education, and pop music at ethanhein.com.
By the end of this course, you’ll be able to harness more interesting chord progressions to create powerful emotional reactions in your listeners.
Add a custom mentorship session on top of your course subscription to work through the material one-on-one with an expert mentor. Get a more personalized experience featuring weekly calls, feedback, additional resources, and more. Tell us about your goals below to learn more.
This course is for producers, composers, and songwriters with a basic understanding of music theory and chords, looking to expand their understanding of how to use chords and chord progressions in different contexts.
You'll learn how to create emotionally powerful chord progressions to convey different feelings in your music. You'll also learn a ton of music theory concepts, including intervals, major and minor chords, diatonic harmonies, and much more, and use them right away in a series of real-life challenges.
This course is a continuation of our free series, Theory for Producers, about scales and modes. As such, while not required, it will definitely help to have a working knowledge of scales and notes. Ideally, you'll also want a working knowledge of a digital audio workstation (DAW), such as Ableton Live, Logic, FL Studio, or something else.
This course was designed to be completed in roughly six weeks, assuming students would have a few hours a week to spend on it. Each "week" includes a certain section and challenge activity for you to take on. That said, that timeline is just a casual recommendation — you can choose to blow through it all in one sitting or take a year with it, if you'd like.
You can start the course anytime. If you'd like more accountability and guided feedback from a professional, you can request to work through the course and your own goals with a Soundfly Mentor for four or six weeks, and get a more personalized experience for a specific period of time.
Learn more about custom mentorship here.
This course includes 54 lessons, including videos, graphics, text, activities, demos, quizzes, and much more.
As a subscriber, you'll get unlimited access to all the course content on Soundfly.com, including this course and all our other premium courses, to go through at your own pace. This includes all the videos, tutorials, demos, quizzes, activities, downloads, and other materials within our courses. You're also entitled to a 25% discount on our custom mentorship program, you will be invited to join our exclusive community Discord group, and you'll have access to exclusive discount perks courtesy of our partner brands. You can cancel anytime.
You can find out more about subscribing here.
Yes, absolutely. If you would like to go through the course with support, accountability, feedback, and guidance from an expert, you can request a mentor by filling out this form. A Soundfly staffperson will reach out within 48 hours to learn more about your goals, your music, and your skills level, and pair you with a mentor who can help you achieve your next musical milestone. Our mentorship program is our science-backed learning model designed to help you learn more efficiently and effectively. Your mentor will tailor the course to your experience and interests, offer detailed weekly feedback on your work, answer any questions you have, help you blow past obstacles, and keep you on track to accomplish your goals.
You can find out more about mentorship and our expert mentors here.
