techniques using Chords (chord progression)

[headphone]

using chords can give your track that warmth and fullness right? I'd like to know in general, how are chords ment to be played, on a keyboard what are some techniques used to play chords (every other key with 3 fingers?), how do certain keys in an octive give a "happy" or "dark" vibe?
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, what are some common instruments used for playing chords in hiphop, rap and r&b (strings? electric pianos for r&b?).

feel free to teach me whatever you know about chords and playing them, no matter how random your post maybe. Thanks in advance FP.

[water ave]

http://chordmaps.com/part2.htm

[headphone]

^^ doesn't work, i even went to the site. probably broken, but thanks.
anyone else?

[water ave]

http://www.chordmaps.com/

try that one

[owendolmer]

Yes! Chords are a great way to give a song a foundation. Grab a guitar or keyboard and start learning. An invaluable thing for you at this point would be to pick up a chord book from a library or go to a chord archive or database online and study it. Knowing chords is probably one of the most important basic abilities especially when you're coming up with lines, riffs, solos, progressions, etc.. for a song. Once you know your chords, remember that basic chords are neutral, Majors tend to be happy, and Minors give that dark or depressed feeling. Most chords A-G including their sharps and flats have a major and minor so you can achieve the song's "feel" that you want no matter what key it's in. You'll know what I mean once you start learning the basic chords.. I don't really know too much about rap and hip hop but Swizz beats' "Im a hussla" used 2 chords and a piano riff and made a hit. "can't stop won't stop" had no chords or melody whatsoever and was still a hit.. To this day that still puts a smile on my face.
Good luck!
Owen

[water ave]

@ the thread starter a chord consist of 3 notes being played at once and depending on the root note you choose and the scale you cant dictate the feeling or mood of the track by just playing eveyr other note on a keyboard for instance a C- major chord = c is the root note and major is the scale

c-e-g =root position of a c-major chord and of course they have different inversions wih in there scales.

a common progression would be

I IV V which is the
I= which is your root note or in a situtation using progression it would be ex. C-MAJOR and then IV-4TH key over F in a major scale and V=5th key over from your root note and thats basically a common progression.

depending on where you start from and what your root note is what ever you choose would be considerd your I=1

if you choose D- THEN you would play with in the notes of a D-major chord and D would be considerd I the 4th key to D is a G so you would follow up the progression in a G-scale etc etc

dont really know if i said it right but you should really check out that site or check out PIANONANNY.COM for some more lessons.

and there are no standard instruments for playing chords for any type of genre of music.its just a way to accompanient a rhythm and fill its own mood of a track.

[headphone]

thank you for your insite owen.
and thanks water ave for pointing out that

there are no standard instruments for playing chords for any type of genre of music.its just a way to accompanient a rhythm and fill its own mood of a track.

as for the other technical stuff, i guess i've gotta learn more before i understand what you were saying.

I did use the site's search function but no helpful threads came up.. but i looked around and found this http://www.futureproducers.com/forum...threadid/43840
(for anyone who searched THIS, that up there will help)

[headphone]

so when talking about chords, what does (1-3-5),(2-5-1),(1-4-5) and all that mean? the spaces between each fingers/notes on a keyboard? i didnt get that part.

[Jackin_J]

And if you dont know how to play chords have a look at this fantastic tool:

http://www.chordspace.com/

Thanks to Krushing for pointing it out to me. Its a VST that will turn your notes into chords.

[lo-phi]

the 1-3-5 refers to the notes you're playing, called intervals. an interval is fancy way of referring to notes in a scale (not the space between keys on a keyboard). for example, in C major the 1-3-5 would be C-E-G (the 1 is the root note). those are determined by the scale you're playing. to figure out a major scale, start at your root note, and count to the intervals in this pattern: 2,2,1,2,2,2,1. so again, in C major, starting on C, the intervals would be: 1=C, 2=D, 3=E, 4=F, 5=G, 6=A, 7=B, 8=C (an octave above where you started). C major is a good scale to start learning keyboard / piano with because it uses only white keys. a minor scale is calculated similarly, except the intervals are found by counting with the pattern 2,1,2,2,1,2,2. so C minor would have the notes 1=C, 2=D, 3=D#, 4=F, 5=G, 6=G#, 7=A#, 8=C (an octave above where you started). so, back to where we started, the 1-3-5 of C minor would be C-D#-G. the 1-3-5 is important because the intervals 1-3-5 make up the triad of any chord. a C major chord is played with the notes C-E-G and a C minor is played as C-D#-G. if all of this is extremely confusing to you, google for some basics on music theory and chord theory. they will help you immensely.