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Chord Progressions

Example “Billy Jean”

This example will show how to code “Billy Jean”s’ Intro by Michael Jackson.

  • Scale: minor

  • Root: E

  • Chords:

The number after it refers to the octave. In Renardo, the middle C=5, so you always have to add 2 when composing from the sheet music.

# Tempo:
Clock.bpm=117
# Root E:
Root.default=“E”
# Scale to minor:
Scale.default=Scale.minor
# Chords in a list:
chords=[(0,2,4),(0,1,3,5),(0,2,4,6),(0,1,3,5)]
# Player object:
s1 >> pluck(chords, oct=3, dur=[1.5,5/2], sus=2)
# Drums:
b1 >> play("<V....V..V...[VV]V..><..o.><---->")

Example “Get Lucky”

This example will show how to create bassline and chords of the track “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk.

Bass:

B1D2F#2E2

Chords:

BmDF#mEm

In the fourth chord there is a note borrowed from the neighbor F#m (Circle of Fifths):

F#2A2C#3B2
D2F#2A2G#2 (F#m chord key)
B1D2F#2E2

As an extra, you can try to create a little variety using TimeVars:

Drop: Thinner no beats Break: No voice Buildup: Mix BreakNDrop

With 4 notes/chords played every 16 beats, the song structure is as follows:

IntroBreakBuildupDropBreakBuildupDropOutro
16 Beats32 Beats32 Beats64 Beats32 Beats32 Beats64 Beats48 Beats