How to write Chords like EASYFUN

The Electric EP track "Know Who You Are" can level up your MIDI Skills

Welcome back to this little series on MIDI & chord-writing.

This week I’ll give you an easy and fun guide to writing chords. What better way to do this than by looking at some MIDI by EASYFUN?

To give a little background, Finn Keane (EASYFUN) is a artist, music producer, and core member of the former music label PC Music (2013–23) and was there right from the collective’s beginnings. This year, he has production credits on Charli’s hyped BRAT album, and rumor has it he is cooking up something for Carly Rae Jepsen’s upcoming album too…

If you haven’t already, you should give the EP Electric a listen, released near the end of 2023. It’s one of the strongest releases in the PC Music catalog. Every song on it is a winner, with the tracklist split evenly between hardhitting/energetic (e.g., “HARDPAIN”) and lyrical/introspective (e.g., “Know Who You Are”) songs. What makes the EP work for me as a whole is its use of stark contrasts and juxtapositions.

To give you a sense of his more lyrical side, we’ll take a look at the closing track off the EP, “Know Who You Are” —

Gorgeous chords, right? What’s happening here…

Let’s look at the MIDI in some detail:

My transcription of “Know Who You Are” by EASYFUN in Logic Pro’s piano roll

What makes the chord loop so elegant?

1. Pedal Points

Pedal points are notes held from one chord to the next. There are certain notes in the scale that work over every chord. As we saw in last week’s newsletter, on A. G. Cook’s chords for I.D.L., Scale Degree 1 sounds great over any chord of the major scale.

The same thing goes for Scale Degree 5, which in the key of C major is G.

As you can see below, EASYFUN sustains G (in green) from one chord to the next:

EASYFUN sustaining that G

Scale Degree 5 always works. It’s a safe bet. Scale Degree 5 sounds even better when used in combination with Scale Degree 1, but that’s for another newsletter…

2. Add Basic Triads

Let’s add harmonic detail by adding triads. Triads are chords that consist of three notes. Normally a triad consists of the Root + 3rd + 5th.

The chords above spell out F, G, Em, F, which correspond to Roman Numerals IV, V, iii, and IV in the key of C major. For chords V and IV, EASYFUN just adds the 5th and the 3rd in that order.

For that iii chord, Em, he substitutes the 5th (B) with the 6th (C), which technically turns it into a tonic (I) chord in first inversion (E, G, C) and makes for more elegant voice leading.

Scale Degree 5 marked in yellow

3. Use Contrary Motion

Contrary motion is just a fancy way of saying “when the bass goes up, the melody goes down” and vice versa. Let’s look at the top notes of the chord pattern: C, B, C, A. See how the melody goes down, then up, then down again? And how the bass does the exact inverse?

What’s also nice about this chord-writing is that the melody doesn’t jump around but tends to move by step or by third, which gives it a very tight quality.

4. Break Up the Chords

This is the easiest bit. Logic Pro has a function called Q-Flam that breaks up (arpeggiates) a chord for you. To do this, you need to check Quantization in your Region inspector menu, then select the Q-Flam value to be at the value of 1/8th. I’m sure Ableton, FL, etc. have similar functions.

It turns these block chords:

Into these arpeggiated chords:

In effect, the MIDI events are pushed forwards or backwards, so the chord is kind of automatically broken up for you.

Ok, with that out of the way, let’s try to make our own.

Let’s try to come up with our own chord loop inspired by “Know Who You Are.”

Let’s first add the G as the pedal tone:

Then let’s add the chords vi (Am) – IV (F) – I (C) – iii (Em) to mix things up a little. Let’s also make sure the melody moves in contrary motion with the bass, i.e., rises when the bass falls, and vice versa:

Let’s break the chords up using Q-Flam (or just shifting back the MIDI events manually):

There we go! An easy and fun way of writing chord loops (;

Final Suggestions

• Don’t limit yourself to just the chords mentioned. Try different combinations like vi (Am), IV (F), I (C), iii (Em), ii (Dm), etc.

• Use your ears to judge what sounds good. The theory is a guide, but let your personal taste be the ultimate judge.

• Take it easy & have fun. You can just use your own set of chords, apply the above set of rules, and come up with something pretty.

Have you tried giving it a shot? Drop a comment below!