How to write cinematic chord progressions on guitar
Hi Visitor,
There is a little secret that movie soundtrack composers use to create their chord progressions. It's a trick so simple that it can be explained in 10 minutes.
And that's exactly what I will do in the video at the end of this email, but first, I need to ask you a question, Visitor.
Here it is: if you invented a simple trick to make great music that everybody could understand easily and could be explained in 10 minutes at most... how would you name this trick?
Think about it for just a minute...
... it all depends if you wanted people to learn this trick or not.
If you were a teacher and you wanted to encourage people to learn it, you would use an easy, friendly name like: "easy magic chords" or "wonder chords".
If you were a YouTuber interested only in how many people watch your videos, you would give it a fancy meaningless name like "God chords" (I'm not making that up...)
If instead you were more interested in impressing people with your genius for coming up with such an idea, you would give it a complex, serious name. Maybe you would take to Greek-derived words and put them together. Like: "retrograde synchronic relationship," or "inverse undertonic chordal extension," or "chromatic mediant progression."
"HAHA," you'll say, "these names are obviously stupid. Nobody would use them."
Do you think I'm joking?
... because the real name is actually "chromatic mediant progression" - and that tells you a lot about music theorists ;-)
So what is a ‘chromatic mediant’?
It’s a sound you’ve probably heard countless times, but you may not have heard it by its name.
This type of chord motion is incredibly common in movie and TV soundtracks. So if you want to come up with more ‘cinematic’ sounding chord progressions, this is a great way to learn how.
This progression has its place in popular music as well. A great example is the song ‘Creep’ by Radiohead, which uses a chromatic mediant in the first two chords.
So what is a chromatic mediant, and how can you play it on the guitar? In the video linked below, I will explore all the different ways you can play chromatic mediants on the guitar, how you can use them in your music, and I’ll even explain why it sounds so good:
Watch the video here: https://musictheoryforguitar.com/chromatic-mediants-guitar-cinematic.html
Enjoy!
Tommaso Zillio
Music Theory Education Expert
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