Harmonize a Melody – Chords.Now

This is an interactive tutorial to show you how to find the right chord progression for the melody you like. I'll explain some basic principles and will give you some examples so you could hear the patterns.

No need to have an instrument right now! All examples have the interactive chord buttons, similar to the ones you can find on an accordion. Here is how it looks in this tutorial: press ▶ below the staff and then play the chords using the buttons:

Now, what are those C, F, and G, and how do you actually know which one to play?

The music theory tutorials may be difficult to understand, and if you are sometimes confused by the Roman numerals system (e.g. I – IV – V), you are not alone! I promise, I will not use Roman numerals at all. You can start playing chords without learning a lot of theory before that. You will need to know some basic things, and this bare minimum I'll tell you here.

If you are ready to try, jump to the first chapter where we'll start from the very beginning talking about major and minor chords. I'll see you there!

Last but not least: all texts on this website are written by me, manually; I respect my visitors and I'm not using AI to generate texts.

The tutorial is work in progress, and here is my current plan:

• Major and minor chords
• Which key is it in? Major or minor, and find a tonic.
• Dominant chord and how it resolves to the tonic.
• Subdominant chord. Practice finding tonic, subdominant, and dominant chords for the given key.
• Relative minor and major keys. Find the tonic, the subdominant, and the dominant chords for the relative key.
• Descending bass line, showing so called “Andalusian cadence” Am G F E as an example.
• Parallel major and minor, when we borrow a chord to change the mood or create a stronger pull in the melody.
• Secondary dominant: the chord that resolves to the dominant, which resolves to the tonic.
• Seventh chord.
• Just a tiny bit of theory on notes and chords.
• Whatever else comes to my mind :)

While waiting for the new content here, you can go check my other music related project: an app which, finally, lets you play melodies with chords on your phone, just like on an accordion. iOS, Android, browser version: Piano Chords: Keys + Accordion