The Chord Trigger

Chord Trigger: A Handy Chord Generator

The chord trigger is a very handy tool for when you're stuck with ideas for chord progressions. This great little device can help you come up with various musical ideas, including:

• Extended harmonies
• Intervals
• Triads

If you want to play your major triad on certain notes, the chord trigger essentially generates chords based on the original note you're playing.

How It Works

As you can see here, these are the triggered keys that I'm playing. It simply plays notes for the original note being played, generating a chord for that note in the major key:

• Key of C: Major triad
• Key of D: Major triad
• And so on...

You can change the settings to whatever you like; these are single chords, along with other variations like:

• Major seconds
• Extended harmonies

Multisection Feature

One of the exciting aspects of the chord trigger is its multisection feature. If you pull up a guitar sound, you can see how it utilizes various presets for generating chords that have a specific progression.

• Open Chords: This preset allows you to trigger chord sequences while playing a melody.

All the trigger keys in blue represent the notes that will be triggering the chord sequences. The notes outside of this blue section can be played normally.

Chord Examples

For instance, consider these chords:

• An open C chord is played on a G.
• Then, it moves to A and back to D.

By harmonizing here, we can look at what chords are being played:

• F
• Bb
• Bb diminished (possibly)
• G
• A
• D minor

These chords might seem complex, but the key takeaway is that the chord trigger pulls out different chord variations you can easily use within a progression.

Keyboard Voicings

The keyboard voicings work similarly, allowing you to quickly change the sounds:

• For example, give it an acoustic piano sound.

Conclusion

The chord trigger is very handy for coming up with a progression of chords. While creating your own chord progressions is a more in-depth topic for another course, using this little chord trigger, especially in multisection, is an excellent way to spark new musical ideas!