Choose a mood
Tap a feeling. You'll get its scale, every chord that belongs to it (tap to hear), and ready-made progressions you can play through. Change the root to move it higher or lower. The docked keyboard lights up with every chord.
Place it in Ableton
Never touched a piano roll? This is the whole thing. A chord is just notes stacked on top of each other at the same spot in time — that's it.
Make a sound MIDI track
Drag an instrument onto a new track — Wavetable (a pad preset) or stock Analog/Electric work great. That creates a MIDI track you can write notes into.
Open a clip piano roll
Double-click an empty slot in the track to make a MIDI clip — the piano roll opens at the bottom. Set the clip to 4 bars and the grid (bottom-right) to 1 bar so each chord is held.
Draw a chord stack notes
Press B (or click the pencil) for Draw mode. Click to place the root note, then click directly above it for each other note in the chord — they all share the same horizontal spot so they sound together. The keys on the left light up so you can check.
Copy & move it build the progression
Select a chord's notes, Cmd/Ctrl + D to duplicate, drag it one bar right, then nudge the notes to the next chord. Shift + ↑/↓ transposes by a semitone, Shift + Cmd/Ctrl + ↑/↓ by an octave.
Make it feel right tone
Pad preset + more reverb + a slower tempo = instant mood. Velocities around 80–100, a touch lower on the top note. Stagger note starts by 1–5 ms to fake a strum.
The shortcut: let Ableton spell the chords
Drop a Scale MIDI device on the track and set it to your key — now every note you draw is forced in-key, so you can't play a wrong note. Add a Chord MIDI device and one finger plays a full triad. Use the Mood tab to get the exact notes, then these devices to play them effortlessly.
| Chord | Stack these notes | Why these |
|---|---|---|
| Any minor (e.g. Am) | A · C · E | Root, then up 3 semitones (minor 3rd), then up 7 (5th). Sad/dark home base. |
| Any major (e.g. C) | C · E · G | Root, up 4 (major 3rd), up 7 (5th). Bright and resolved. |
| Power chord (e.g. F#5) | F# · C# | Just root + 5th, no 3rd. Heavy and ambiguous — huge in metal/trap. |
| Minor 7 (e.g. Am7) | A · C · E · G | Add one more 3rd on top — softer, deeper, lo-fi/neo-soul. |
| Sus2 / Sus4 | A·B·E / A·D·E | Swap the 3rd for the 2nd or 4th — open, unresolved, ominous. |
Two things that instantly sound pro
Voice leading: keep shared notes in place and move the others the shortest distance — chords glide instead of jumping. A bass note: drop the root an octave or two below the chord on a separate track. A low drone on the key's root under everything deepens the mood enormously.
Why this works
A 60-second version of the theory. For the full interactive piano, circle of fifths, and the rest, the Music Theory toolkit is the deep dive this one is built on.
Mode = mood
A mode is a scale with a built-in emotional colour. Same 12 notes, different starting point and pattern of steps — Major is bright, Aeolian is sad, Phrygian is dark. Pick the mode and the feeling is half-done.
Chords come from the scale
Stack every other note of the scale and you get its diatonic chords — they all belong together, so any of them sound right in that key. That's the list this engine shows you.
The signature chord
Each mood has a chord that defines it — Phrygian's ♭II, harmonic minor's major V, major's IV→V. Lean into it and the emotion lands.
Progressions = movement
Roman numerals (i, ♭II, IV…) describe a progression in any key, so the same shape works no matter the root. Steal one, change the root to fit your vocal, and you've got a loop.