Chords and harmony in Veena

Chords in Veena are real MIDI parts on your timeline: CoProducer writes a progression in your song's key and style, you pick from 3 options, and every chord stays editable note by note in the piano roll. It's free, it runs in your browser, and the melody and bass CoProducer writes next are built on the chords you kept.

Harmony is where most songs in Veena begin. In Veena's own data, "chord progression" is the single most common phrase in first requests, ahead of any genre or instrument.

Ask CoProducer for a progression

Open Ask CoProducer in the dock and give it as much or as little as you know. Roman numerals, chord names and moods all work:

• "Sad piano chords in A minor at 70 BPM: i, VI, III, VII, one chord per bar, open voicings."
• "Neo-soul chords in Eb major on Electric Piano, with 7ths and 9ths and a lazy, late feel."
• "Keep bars 1 to 4, but reharmonize bars 5 to 8 so the chorus lifts."

CoProducer shows 3 options in the chat. Hover a card to hear it, browse with ↑ and ↓, press Enter to add it, or ask for More Options. Nothing that depends on the chords, like a bassline, is written until you've picked, and one Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on a Mac) removes anything you didn't want.

Write chords in Veena by hand

1. Set the key. Click the key in the transport bar and choose from 24 keys (12 roots, major or minor). Tempo and time signature sit beside it.
2. Create a clip. Click Create MIDI Clip (the piano-plus icon beside Upload) and choose Melody.
3. Choose a sound in the Instrument tab: a shelf, then a preset. Acoustic Grand Piano, Upright Piano and Electric Piano cover keys; String Ensemble works for strings; Warm Pad, Glass Pad and Dark Pad are three of the pads on Veena's own synth.
4. Open the Piano Roll tab. With the Draw Tool, click a root note, then stack the third and fifth above it. Drag a note's right edge to hold the chord for a bar.
5. Snap to the harmony. Change Snap to Bar or Beat so chords land on the grid, and leave Show Note Names on to read C, E, G at a glance.
6. Repeat and vary. Switch to the Select Tool, drag across a chord, then copy and paste it with Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V. Move selected notes an octave with Ctrl+↑ or Ctrl+↓.

Chords from a melody, and a melody from chords

CoProducer builds a song in the order your request needs, not in a fixed one. If you already have a hummed tune or a vocal, record or import it and ask for chords underneath: CoProducer reads the notes you actually placed before it writes. Ask for a melody after the chords, and the melody reads the chords. The same goes for the bassline, which is written against the chord notes on the timeline, not against a chord name. More in writing a melody and basslines and 808s.

Tips for better harmony

• Say the voicing. "Close voicings under middle C", "spread across two octaves" and "rootless 9ths" all change what CoProducer plays.
• Change the sound, keep the notes. Ask to "swap the piano for a Rhodes" or "put these chords on a warm pad" and the chord notes stay exactly as they are.
• Fix one chord, not the song. Select the clip and ask to "re-voice bar 6 only", or edit that bar yourself in the piano roll.
• Take the chords with you. Download MIDI file saves the progression for any DAW.

To audition progressions before a project exists, the chord progression generator builds them from one sentence. The rest of the capabilities live in the Veena help centre.