Great Chromatic Mediant Chord Progressions

Do you want to write new chord progressions and explore amazing melodies? Be surprised by how easy it is to write original music and chord progressions with chromatic mediants. Let’s write some music!

About chromatic mediants: the term itself sounds like some heavy music theory stuff. But I promise you it is far easier and more intuitive than it sounds. It’s almost like a hack. I hate to use this word because it’s used by everybody nowadays. But it is.

Chromatic mediants are used in music all around you. There is not a single major film music score that does not use them. They are also frequently used in (contemporary) classical music and jazz. But what about pop and rock? Bands like Radiohead are not afraid to use them. So why not you?

Video Tutorial: Make Chromatic Mediant chord progressions and Melodies

If you want to hear all these mediant examples with real music, then check out my video on 6 beautiful chromatic mediant chord progressions and listen to some inspiring chord progressions and melodies in action!

Diatonic Mediants and Chromatic Mediants Explained

What are mediant chords and what are diatonic mediant chord relationships?

When chords have a mediant relationship, it means that they are a major or a minor third apart from each other. This counts for up and down. If mediants are diatonic, it means that they only use the notes that are part of the scale or key. And important to remember, that diatonic mediant chords will have two notes in common.

If you look at the C major and A minor chords above, you can see that the root notes are a minor third apart and that they have the C and E notes in common. This means that C major and A minor share a mediant relationship.

What is a chromatic mediant and how do you use them?

When you want to make a diatonic mediant into a chromatic mediant, then you will need to adjust one or more of the notes. And you do this chromatically. This means adjusting your notes with a half step.

As you can see in the picture above, C major and E minor share a diatonic mediant relationship. The common notes are E and G. If I would raise the G to a G#, then we get an E major chord. Now we have a chromatic mediant. So E major is the chromatic mediant of C major.

Now that you know what a chromatic mediant is, we can find out why you would use chromatic mediants in your music. The use of chromatic mediants is to create exciting new chord progressions and to spice up your melodies and harmonies. It is by far one of my favourite techniques!

Traditionally you can divide chromatic mediants into two types.

• Chromatic mediant
• Double chromatic mediant

Chromatic mediants always have one common note. For example, A major is a chromatic mediant of C major, because they both have the note E in them. But Ab major is also a chromatic mediant of C major because they share the note C.

Double chromatic mediants have no common notes. The connection between these chords sounds less smooth than regular chromatic mediants, because all the notes are different.

I personally divide chromatic mediants into three categories. 

• When you have to adjust only one note
• When you need to adjust two notes
• When you have to adjust all three notes

It’s completely up to you which category you choose and find suitable for your song or composition.

How to write music with chromatic mediants:

• Check if any chords have a mediant relationship in your chord progression
• Try out which category of chromatic mediant sounds best to you
• Adjust your melody to highlight your new chords and chord tones.

Chromatic mediant chord progression No. 1

To create a chromatic mediant in this example, I only adjusted one not in the Am chord. I raised the C to a C#. This gives a chromatic mediant relationship of C major to A major. The progression sounds a lot brighter because now two major chords follow each other.

Chromatic mediant chord progression No. 2

I really love how the chord connection of C major and Ab major sounds. It’s so powerful! As you can see, I needed to adjust two notes instead of only one. The A and the E are both lowered with half a step. So this chromatic mediant falls into my second category.

A great voice-leading tip is to keep the common note in the same voice. Especially if it’s the top voice. This creates a smoother connection

Chromatic mediant chord progression No. 3

In this chromatic mediant example, we only adjust one note. All you have to do is from the E minor, and raise the G to a G#. This makes it into an E major chord.

With your melody, you can accentuate this new note G#, by adding it to your melody.

Chromatic mediant chord progression No. 4

In the next examples, we will create chromatic mediants with minor chords. So we will make the major chord minor.

In this example the chromatic mediant of C minor and Eb minor share the note Eb. The only note that we had to change is lowering the G to a Gb. And just notice how dark this progression now sounds because two minor chords follow each other.

Chromatic mediant chord progression no.5

In this example, we had to adjust two notes to get this chromatic mediant. This is again a chromatic mediant from my second category. From the Eb major we had to raise the Eb to E and Bb to B. Now we have an E minor chord. The Em sounds a bit out of place, but you can make it sound more natural by playing the common tone in your melody for example.

Chromatic mediant chord progression no.6

This is a chromatic mediant relationship from my third category. The chords C to Abm is called double chromatic mediant, because they have no notes in common. From my chromatic mediant categories, this is category no.3. Here you need to change all three notes.

As you will notice when you play the YouTube example or play the chords yourself, this Abm chord sounds out of place.

Chromatic mediant melody to progression no.6

With your melody, you have the option to glue the chords together or emphasize the odd notes. In this case, the Cb which is the minor third of Ab minor, is also the major 7th of C major. Because Cb is the same as B.

You can create some amazing melodies by playing a scale that belongs to the chromatic mediant chord that you are currently playing. For example, on the Ab minor, you can play an Ab minor scale. Just try it out!

Conclusion

Chromatic mediants are amazing. They are incredibly easy to use in your music and they can create beautiful chord progressions and melodies. They just give you that extra spice you were missing.

I just want to mention that you can get to the same chords by approaching chromatic mediants as modal borrowing chords and modal mixture. For example the chromatic mediant of C major and Eb major. This E major chord can be seen as a chord from the parallel key C minor.

Interested in more videos about creative chord progression techniques or musical modes? Check out my other videos on the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian and Aeolian modes. Check out my videos on how to make Phrygian melodies.

Or dive into the beautiful technique of modal mixture, modal interchange and borrowed chords. Lydian & Ionian, Phrygian & Aeolian.

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Suggested Video Tutorial: Combining The Lydian Mode and Ionian Mode

Questions About Chromatic Mediant Chords