Random Chord progression generator?

Random chords? You're probably looking for a program like Band in a Box where you can specify a form and style of music and it will create an accompaniment for you. It's not exactly random but would do what it says on the tin and provide you with backing tracks.

Wulf

 

www.realbook.us

There's chord charts to over 600 tunes that you can transpose to any key you want.

 

If you think you can use random chords over a 12 bar blues, you need to explore how chords are constructed some more!!!

 

If you want to know about chords and chord progressions, that's harmony theory. Also, when constructing a chord progression, you have to take into account consonant and disconsonant intervals. Some chords change well to together, some don't. It's all about how certain frequencies behave and work together.

So any good book on the theory of harmony could be what you're looking for.

 

My teacher uses a very sophisticated random chord progression generator: it's called a die.

Pick a key. (Say "G major"). Then roll the die; if it comes up 2, for example, that's your first chord (the II chord), in this case A minor). Then roll again, and so on.

By the way, this is a licensed system. Fortunately, I'm a distributor and take Pay Pal.

 

Why do you want random chords? If you're looking for a sequence to improvise over, the randomness will work against the goal of learning about music. If you're looking for chord sequences that are musical but are unfamiliar to you, try the Vanilla Book. If you're looking for something that's more rocky, how about doing a search for "rock song chords" or similar - the first hit I got from Google seems to fit the bill of what I think you're after.

Wulf

 

The first thing to know about chords is THEY ARE NOT RANDOM. Chords are chosen based on the MELODY, even with very simple melodies.

The goal is to have the current melody note be a chord tone. Certainly simple melodies (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Happy Birthday, etc.) work that way. The whole concept of "reharmonizing" that's used in jazz is to take an existing melody but set it to different chords than the original composition used. While you can play Happy Birthday with just 3 chords, you can play it changing chords on each melody note if you like.

 

As suggested above, give "Band in a Box" a try. You can get a demo at the site.

http://www.bandinabox.com/

I download a BIAB version of Real Book 1 and am having great fun playing my piccolo bass with a full rhythm section.

http://www.members.shaw.ca/glitch/real.html


M.

 

A random chord chart generator is a GREAT idea!!!

I'd like 15 bars of three chords to the bar in 7/8 please.. bingo!

 

they have like 20 sided die for Dungeons and Dragons and RP games like that.... Not that I play it!... I've..just..heard!

 

Actually, for it to truely be "random" you'd need 11 sides for just the major chords. Though it wouldn't sound very melodic, unless...by chance...it was some chords that went well together.

 

Actually, just grab a program that can create random numbers (Excel if you have it). Who needs dies when you have computers

 

Exactly.

Here is an example of a simple "Random" chord generator in excel.

However I agree with whoever above said that random chords might not help you as much as you think. Instead, just grab Levine's book, or any of the Abersold books, or a Real book, and use those progressions.

First row of 15 is just random notes. The next row is notes with a chord quality attached. I just made Maj, m, Maj7, m7, and 7 qualities. You can add more pretty easily.