A Trick I Wish I Knew Earlier for Better Chord Progressions

Production tips · French Touch

A Trick I Wish I Knew Earlier for Better Chords

Here’s a simple trick I use to write better chord progressions — even without deep theory knowledge.

Go to hooktheory.com/trends, pick a song, then click the Key button and switch it to A minor or C major.

Hooktheory Trends: switching the key to A minor or C major

This puts all the chords on white keys, making them easier to analyze and compare.

🎯 This helps you:

Spot common progressions
Notice borrowed chords (they appear striped)
Understand harmony without overthinking it

🎛️ Want to go further? Let’s talk voicings.

Voicings are just different ways to arrange the notes of a chord.

You keep the same chord — but change the feel depending on how it’s played.

🎹 Try this with an Amin9 chord, always keeping A as the bass note:

A–C–E–G–Bstandard voicing – smooth and full

A–E–B–C–Gopen voicing – wider and lighter

A–G–B–C–Etighter voicing – more emotional

A–B–C–E–Gclustered voicing – rich and tense

Even with the same notes, each voicing creates a totally different vibe — while keeping A in the bass keeps everything grounded.

If you use a DAW like Ableton Live or FL Studio, try using its midi transpose function to shift everything to a different key while playing in A minor or C major — that way, you can jam using only white keys and still stay compose in other keys.