How to make changes from Verse to Chorus more interesting: Chord progression help?

Hey Adam, The V of V is known as a secondary dominant chord and is essentially borrowing from a neighboring key. In the key of C the chords are C Dm Em F G Am Bdim C. The V chord is G(7) and its fifth is D(7). Dm is the chord that naturally occurs in C but by using a D major or a D7 you create a strong pull to a G chord. You can use this as a way of modulating to the key of G or simply use it as slight alteration from standard harmony and continue in the original key, it is a very common harmonic device.

Using the relative minor is also a great way to change the "flavor" of a progression while retaining the harmonic continuity of the piece. Relative harmony is a subject that I spend a lot of time with my students covering. You are already familiar with linear harmony which lays out a key in a straight line and assigns a number to each chord as I ii iii IV V vi vii. You also are aware that the relative minor key is laid out in a similar fashion i ii III iv v VI VII (upper case roman numerals indicate major chords and lower case represent minor chords). Linear harmony is the standard way to analyze chord progressions BUT, in my studies I have concluded that the way we actually PERCEIVE chord motion is through RELATIVE harmony. This gives us a different mechanism to easily construct interesting and harmonically valid progressions from a simple set of basic guidelines that I will lay out for you here. First of all we break the chords down into their most basic relationships, the standard I IV V progression. Note that in a major key that I, IV. and V, are major chords. [key of C = C F G] But in a minor key they are minor chords [key of Am = Am Dm Em] These are all relatives to each other. C-Am, F-Dm, G-Em. This becomes a key point in this type of harmonic analysis. It allows us to simplify complex chord motion relationships that are used in linear harmony. (I spent years in college level harmony and theory classes before I went to G.I.T. and was often frustrated by how confusing these relationships were laid out in linear harmony)

Here is how the basic concepts of relative harmony work: Each chord has a primary and a secondary destination that it can move to, they are as follows;

#1 A I (one) chord moves to a IV chord (primary) OR a V chord (secondary)

#2 A IV chord moves to a V chord OR a I chord

#3 A V chord moves to a I chord OR a IV chord (V to I is the strongest motion in music)

These basic guidelines are very simple and work in either major or minor keys. It is this next guideline that pulls it all together and simplifies all the "rules" of linear harmony.

#4 ANY chord can move to OR be SUBSTITUTED by its RELATIVE.

It is this that really makes things interesting. Try using the relative substitution guideline to change up the existing chord or riff that you are using and create an alternate progression that is harmonically similar to what you are playing.

I did not touch upon the diminished chord which functions like a "chameleon" and can actually be either a IV or a V chord depending on the situation. If you stop and analyze the actual notes in each chord you will get a much better understanding why relative harmony works so well. It also can be extended to analyze harmonic and melodic minor as well as modal applications very effectively.I hope this provides you with a quick and easy way of "changing up" various ideas without having to get bogged down in complex formulas and rules that govern linear motion.