Key changes in a song are a common way to mix up the sound from one section to the next. One particular approach is to move between relative minor and major, say for the verse and chorus.
Let's look at a verse in E minor that repeats the following progression (say one bar per chord):
Em G Am Am
For the chorus, you could then just hop to the relative major: G major. (The relative major is three semitones and 2 letter names up.) The chorus progression would likely start with a G, and could sound like this:
G D Em C
If you go ahead and play those together (see below), the chords all work together in a general sense but I'm not sure I'd say the verse-to-chorus transition (Am → G) or the chorus-to-verse transition (C → G) sound quite right.
Em G Am Am Em G Am Am G D Em C G D Em C Em G Am Am
Let's improve those two transitions using a special feature of the circle of 5ths: moving down a fifth resolves tension. So if we want to land on the chorus's opening G more smoothly, we could start a fifth above it and use a D chord. And to come back to the verse's Em more smoothly, we could do the same thing and start a fifth above with a Bm. That could look like this:
Em G Am Am Em G Am D G D Em C G D Em C Bm (C and Bm are 2 beats each) Em G Am Am
In both cases we're now moving down a fifth to the next section, which sounds better to me. But there's actually one more neat tool you could use. You can strengthen that second "resolution" sound (Bm to Em) by using a "V → i" transition instead of a "v → i" transition. In other words, use a B major chord instead of a B minor. This will take you away from your key (G major / E natural minor) for a moment, but that extra tension means extra resolution when you "return home" to the Em!
Hope you found this useful,
-Alex (maker of Waay)
Submitted January 31, 2022 at 04:30PM by alex_TK https://www.reddit.com/r/Learnmusic/comments/sh9t12/chord_progression_tutorial_key_change_smoothed/?utm_source=ifttt