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How long a section lasts, what tempo makes it last that long, how many bars fit — in any metre, odd ones included.
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Chord progressions
Twenty progressions in twelve keys, with symbols and degrees, an arpeggiated listen and a direct hand-off to the music paper.
Free, in the browser, no account
- CI
- GV
- Amvi
- FIV
They call it "pop".
The arpeggio sits lower than a metronome click for the same number, and by ear they are in the same place: a quarter note lasts six hundred milliseconds, a click fifty. The volume stays where you put it for the rest of the visit, and it applies here only.
The spelling comes from the progression’s MODE, not from the key you choose: a progression written in minor degrees is spelled with the accidentals of the minor. In A minor the seventh degree is a G, and on the recipe of A major it would come out G♯m — a different chord, with a spelling that looks right.
The playback is in root position, arpeggiated, with no inversions and no moving bass: a progression has no register, it is a sequence of functions, and how to voice it is the player’s choice. Switch tabs and it stops — a listen is something you are listening to.
Everything happens in your browser: no data is sent anywhere.
How it works
- Pick the key and the progression. Symbols and degrees rewrite together.
- Listen to the arpeggio to hear where it goes, or copy the sequence.
- From there you can take the same progression to the music paper: the link carries key, scale and progression.
Why it exists
Because “how does this progression go in F♯” is not a question you answer in your head, and because the progressions that work are few and you forget all but four of them.
The twenty here are not a theory catalogue: they are the ones that actually exist on records, written in degrees rather than chords. A progression is a shape — what makes it recognisable is the distance between the chords, not their names — and the key is a parameter. That is why you choose it afterwards.
About the two spellings
The symbols are on top and the degrees underneath, and they are not two ways of saying the same thing to two audiences: they are two different pieces of information. The symbol says what to play now, the degree says what job it does — and that is what lets you recognise the same progression in another song, in another key, without noticing it is the same one.
The symbols are localised, the degrees are not: vi is vi in both languages, while “Lam” and “Am”
are one thing said two ways. That is why they sit one above the other rather than in two tabs.
About the spelling of accidentals
The spelling comes from the mode of the progression, not from the key you pick. A progression written in minor degrees is spelled with the accidentals of the minor: in A minor the seventh degree is a G, and anyone deriving it from the A major scale would get G♯m — a different chord, with a spelling that looks right and that no error would flag.
There is a second case, rarer and more visible: the flattened seventh. In C it is a B♭, not an A♯. They are the same pitch and two different notes, and getting them the wrong way round makes everything after them read crooked.
And one thing that looks like a defect and is not: pick D♯ and the symbols come out in E♭. They are the same key, and E♭ is written with three flats where D♯ would want six plus a double sharp. The menu promises the note; the list prints the spelling you can read.
About the playback
The arpeggio is in root position: root, third, fifth, third. No inversions, no moving bass, no voicing.
That is not laziness. A progression has no register — it is a sequence of functions, and how to lay it out is decided by whoever plays it, on their own guitar or their own piano. Adding a voicing would mean playing something the progression does not say, and making it sound like part of it.
Switch to another tab and the playback stops, because a listen is something you are listening to. (This site’s metronome does the opposite, and rightly: that one exists precisely to play while you do something else.)
About the hand-off to the music paper
The link carries key, scale and progression — not the melody. The bars are generated over there, with its own seed, and that is as it should be: this tool has no melody to give. What it has is the harmonic grid the melody will rest on.
About your data
Everything happens in your browser. This site is made of static files and has no server to send anything to, even if it wanted one.