Hey everybody, Jeff Schneider here.

So,
a few years ago, I wrote this blog post
called the Shopen Trick for awesome
chord progressions. And it's such a
simple but effective tip for creating
beautiful chord progressions that I
wanted to share it with you in a video
so you can hear it in action and do the
same thing at home when you want to
create better and more beautiful chord
progressions. This was all inspired, by
the way, by a lesson I taught many years
ago where we were analyzing the chord
progression to Shopen's prelude in E
minor. It's a really famous piece. You
probably will recognize it. It goes like
[Music]
this. One of the reasons it it works is
because of how smooth the voice leading
is. Sure, you can analyze it with Roman
numerals, using functional harmony, the
stuff we talk about a lot on this
channel, like secondary dominance and
tri-onee substitution, all that jazz.
But you can also create a chord
progression like this using only voice
leading as your main technique. And I
find the best way to teach this
technique is with triads only. So just
three notes per chord. So let's try it
out. Let's start with a G major triad.
And I'm going to play it in second
inversion. So we have a a D on the
bottom. That's the fifth of the chord.
Then G, that's the root. And then B, the
third. Now, here's how you play the
game. All you have to do is pick one of
those notes and move it up or down a
half step. I'm going to go with G. And
we're going to go down a half step. So,
everything else is going to stay the
same, but the G is going to go from G to
F sharp. That's going to sound like
this. Here's the G major to start. And
then, nice. Now, we could analyze that
as like a B minor chord or maybe it's
implying like a G major 7, but we're
going to hold off on the analysis for
now. So, let's pick a chord tone from
our new chord and go down or up a half
step. I'm going to choose the D this
time, the bottom note, and we'll go to a
C sharp. Now, everything else stays the
same. And granted, I'm not really using
my ear right now to compose this chord
progression. I'm more using this
technique as a way of exploring harmony
to find chords and chord progressions I
wouldn't have come up with otherwise.
So, let's hear what this sounds like.
I'll start with the G
major, then lower the middle
note, then lower the bottom
note.
Nice. Okay, let's do this now. Let's
lower the middle note again. We'll go
from F sharp to F natural. Keep
everything else the same. Let's hear
what that all sounds like from the
[Music]
beginning. So, we've had that B on top
for a while now. Let's change the top
note. We'll go down to a B flat. And
we'll keep the other notes the same.
I love the sound of that that chord
there. That's like a a B flat
minor. And I wouldn't have come up with
that chord without this technique
because it's not an expected chord. Like
that's not where my ear naturally hears
this progression going. And that's
what's cool about this. It's kind of
like when I play guitar, I don't know
the notes that well. Well, I don't know
the chord shapes that well, but I can
kind of figure out these different
shapes just by exploring and having fun.
And it it it adds this sense of of
adventure. And so I I happen upon these
chord progressions and these chords that
I wouldn't have landed on otherwise. And
it's the same experience with this
exercise, which is why I like it so
much. So let's talk about a few
guidelines to help you use this
technique successfully. So as I said,
half steps are the way to go here. Move
one half step at a time, one voice at a
time. Pick the bottom voice, the middle
voice, or the top voice, and move down
or up a half step. You can use whole
steps, but when you're starting out with
this, it's really hard to go wrong with
a half step. Going down instead of up is
generally a safer bet, but you can go up
as well. The key thing to remember here
is if it doesn't sound good, then just
go back to the chord you had before and
try a different voice in a different
direction and see how that sounds.
There's nothing wrong with trying
something, not liking it, and then just
going back to the chord you were at
before, and trying something else.
That's totally fine. Don't be afraid to
experiment. Okay, here's another
guideline to keep in mind. Avoid half
steps and major 7ths. Here's what I
mean. Let's say you land on this chord
and it's a C, a D, and a G. This sound,
that's a nice sounding chord. But what I
want you to avoid is then taking this
middle voice and going down a half step
to D flat because that will create a
half step between these two intervals.
And that's going to sound like
this. Now, could you make this work?
Maybe. But again, I just want to give
you these guidelines to help you be as
successful as possible with this
exercise. And in general, those halfstep
intervals within the chord are going to
be a little too clunky. and I suggest
avoiding them. Same goes for major 7th.
So, let's say you're on that chord I
started with at the beginning, the G
major in second inversion, and you go
from that chord, and then you move the
bottom voice down to C sharp. That
sounds
good. But what I don't want you to do
here is take this top voice, this B, and
go up to a C natural. Because what that
does is it creates a major 7 interval
between those outer voices which sounds
like this. So from the
beginning again, could you make this
work? Potentially, but it's a safer bet
to avoid major 7ths just like those half
steps. All right. So, now I'm going to
demonstrate this technique a little bit
more and talk out loud my thoughts about
what I like and what I don't like so you
can hear what's going on inside my head.
Here we go. We'll start with an A flat
major chord in first inversion. And then
let's try top voice down.
Nice. That's like a C minor chord there.
So C, E flat, G.
Okay, that's interesting. Going down
from the C to the B. Augmented triads
like I have here. This C, E flat, and G.
Sometimes those can be a little tricky
to make work, but I I think we can I
think we can do it
here. I like that a lot. So, we have
that middle voice going down to a D,
then a B on the bottom, a G on top.
Let's do a quick analysis just for the
heck of it. We've got a flat major here.
Then we have C minor. And then we have
this I mean we could call
it we could call it B
augmented. And then we go to G major.
Here it is again with an arpeggio to
make it a little bit more fancy.
So, I don't think I would come up with
this chord progression if it weren't for
this technique, but I like it. It's
cool. I could hear this in a solo piano
piece or maybe some kind of a film
score. If I didn't play it with that
voice leading and I just saw those
chords in a lead sheet and I played them
in root position, it would sound like
this.
doesn't have the same effect. Voice
leading is so important. Now, that
doesn't mean you shouldn't spend time
studying functional harmony and doing
the Roman numeral analysis and and
understanding how the chords relate to
one another in terms of the dominant
functions and and all the rest. Like I
said, I talk about that a lot on this
channel for good reason because it helps
to understand why one chord sounds good
going to another. And if you feel like
you need more help understanding all of
those intricate music theory rules, I
highly recommend you check out my
course. It's called Chord theory for R&B
piano. And it's not just for R&B. You
can use it for jazz and any kind of
advanced harmony. It's everything I know
about how to create chords and chord
progressions and reharmonization and how
to build voicings so that you can get
those full rich thick harmonies like
this kind of thing.
[Music]