Which advanced chords can I use for a song composition in scale of G?

Question

I am making a song composition in a scale of G.I have already used major chords **G, C and D** and in some places I have used **Am, Em and Bm**.I would like to make this composition richer with some advanced chords?I am not a guitar expert. I know that we can add Gsus, Cadd9, etc but not sure about their exact application.So I wanted to check with you guys to know whether anything else can be added to make my composition better.If someone can provide with some thumb-rule or formula, that would be even better.

Answer 1

There are just a plethora of chords you can add or substitute to make your song composition more expressive. I wish I could hear a recording of your song as it is now to give you better advice. But what you can do first is try to substitute your one of your minor chords Am, Bm, Em into major chords and check how it affects the singing melody of the lyrics. Or you may add one of these minor made to major chords somewhere.

Check how a C minor or a D minor in place of your C or D chord would change your song.

Another thing is you might want to try adding or swapping F and/or Eb and see how that works.

Once you finalized your chord progression based on how it affected your singing melody, start restructuring your chords. At this point, you may experiment with a capo at different places and checking if there is a good open chord version of your song. Or you may want to add 7th notes on your chords (maj7, min7, dom7).

Try this first and let me know how it goes.

Answer 2

Learn about chord functions. You start with diatonic chords, then go to dominant, secondary dominant, modal interchange, etc. This will unlock you to a much much bigger world of harmony.