In Summary
Landing in the middle of 2023, Toontrack EZkeys 2 brought a raft of songwriting boosters including its Suggest Chords feature. Here we show how it can be used to inject some fresh ideas or add to existing ones to help producing engineers.
Going Deeper
Blank Pages
Some productions need less musical input from a producer than others, and often many self-produced recordings exist without any collaborative help at all. These could take the shape of writers producing demos (or even the finished article), or those creating production music for sync or library use.
Other smaller scale recordings with an engineer can see them nurturing the music and the production that envelopes it (ie, producing). Some might be seasoned writers-turned-producers, while others with musical ears might have their roots in pure audio engineering.
Toontrack EZkeys 2 Suggest Chords
Whichever creative direction comes from, from time to time some songs will hit that place in-between ‘blank page syndrome’ and something a bit more promising. Following its version 2 reboot in the middle of 2023, Toontrack’s venerable keyboard player landed with a new feature that is way ahead of its older sibling’s circle-of-fifths chord wheel. Before, writers without knowledge of music theory were faced with something that looked to them more like some kind of Indiana Jones-type puzzle to solve.
In the video we show how Suggest Chords essentially reads EZkeys’ Chord Wheel for composers to do exactly what it says on the tin. Starting with a chord progression that could do with a little inspiration from Suggest Chords, we then show how writers can take it really easy by rolling the dice for all chords until something great comes along…
The Song Is Key
While there might be loads of great sounding records out there, only a few stick in the mind of the listener, and some engineers might admit that a great song idea can survive most treatments in the studio regardless. In spite of the production, at the heart of every great title is the song.
Some writers will have a good working knowledge of devices such as the circle of fifths, and can lean on these to fill in the gaps on progressions that are in danger of losing the listener. Others working on intuition on its own might be first to hit a brick wall when things just aren’t happening.
Along with guitar, piano for many is the ultimate songwriting tool. Producing engineers or writers without music theory, and pro songsmiths alike might be interested in a button on it they can press when they hit the wall. Suggest Chords is it.
A Word About This Article
As the Experts team considered how we could better help the community we thought that some of you are time poor and don’t have the time to read a long article or a watch a long video. In 2023 we are going to be trying out articles that have the fast takeaway right at the start and then an opportunity to go deeper if you wish. Let us know if you like this idea in the comments.