Hey, how are yoy doing? Justin here.
Today I want to talk a little bit about chord progressions.
We've talked in the past about chords in a key. So we learned that in
the key of C there are certain chords that go together. Actually, all of the
notes from all of those chords belong to the same major scale, the parent
major scale of the key. So in the key of C we had C major, D minor,
E minor, F major, G major, A minor and the B diminished which we
just don't talk about much, it runs in the family. And it's really
helpfull to number the chords. So C would be chord I, first chord
in the key, D minor is chord II, E minor is chord III, F major is
chord IV, G major is chord V, A minor is chord VI. Now, since
music has evolved, the've become some some chord progression that people
use a lot, that sounds really good. The're the reason they get chosen
a lot. It's not like some formula that you have to stick to but
the're just really effective tools. Now as part of this course I want
to do a little introduction to song writing and with song writing you
don't need to stick to a set chord progression. You can really go
completely free form and choose what ever chords you like.
In fact, some of the best songs don't use chords that are in the same key.
They use weird combination of chords, unexpected combination of chords
that can be really beautiful. But when you're first starting out trying to
write a tune it can be helpful to have a kind of a starting point.
Something just to, just to give you something to get going on and some
chord progressions, common chord progressions you might find really
helpful for that. So it's defenitely worth studying them for that reason.
It's also really helpful when you start learning songs on your own,
when you can hear a song and you go "Ah that chord progression sounds
familiar." Because when you practice them thay will start to become familiar.
You'll hear a song on the radio and think "Those chords sound familiar,
that movement" even if you don't know exactly what the chords are, like
what key it's in, you start to recognise the movements of the chords and that
can be a really valuable thing as well. So what I thought I'd do is just pick
5 very common chord progressions, talk you through what they are and
then at some point during the, before next lesson, have a go at practicing them
and playing throught them and see if you can recognise some songs
that use each one of the chord progressions. Just a few, just experiment,
play them, you know, slowly, fast, you know, with the changes happening
quite frequently or not happening very frequently, you know. A couple
of bars in each is good. Experiment. I just want you to open up this
little box and go "Oh there's such a thing as chord progressions, here's
some popular ones, I might start to recognise these sounds, or I
might want to use them for song writing or if I'm jamming with my friends and
he's going to improvise using the C major scale, these would be
wonderful chord progressions to do". OK? So if you got a jam buddy, don't
be using my backing track. If you got somebody to jam with, jam
with a real human. One person plays one of the chord progressions and
the other person improvises. The beauty of doing it using a set chord progression
rather then just any odd chords is that the person which is improvising can
start to imagine the chords that's coming up and find the melody that
would go good with it. That's kind of how it works as you progress and
you get better at improvising your ear kind off guide you into the right
note that will fit with the chords that are coming up. You can kind
of anticipate what it's going to sound like. That is unlikely to
happen in the early days of playing but for sure you can aspire to
having that happen. The first progression that I want
to mention is the I, V, VI, IV sequence. Very, very common chord progression
in pop music. So many pop hits use this and this is the one that
they use also for the axes awesome four chords thing. In the key of C,
which is what I recommend that you stick with for now, it would be C,
G,
Amin,
to F.
OK? C, G, Amin, to F.
If I'm playing that can you imagine a song that uses that? Can you
sing a song that you know, a pop song over the top.
There are hundreds that you could be doing, you know, melodies that
fit over that chord progression. Lovely one to improvise over and
great one if you want to get into a little bit of song writing,
experimenting later down the way. Definitely worth exploring a little bit.
Next one I want to give you is the VI, IV, I, V. OK? So chord 6 was Amin,
to IV which was the F chord,
C which is the I,
to the V which is the G.
The VI, IV, I, V.
Again, really, really common chord sequence. Lot's, and lot's of songs
that will fit with that. I want you to think about the songs, then pop them
in the comments on the web site. OK? Just leave, if you find songs that
use this specific chord progression, let us know in the comments.
See who gets the easy ones first. There's a few low hanging fruit that
you're going to know but let's see what else we can find. I'm sure
we can collectively find a ton of songs that use this chord sequences.
Next chord sequence that we've got is the I, IV, V, IV sequence. Again,
very, very, very common sequence would be C, F, G, F.
Super, super common. Of course we use the I, IV, V chords in a different
sequence for things like the blues. But this isn't a blues. This is a
set chord progression I, IV, V, IV. There are no rules if you are writing
you can try something different too. That works as well. OK.
Next chord progression I, VI, IV, V, which would be C, Amin, F, G.
You can play it lot's of different ways, I'm just trying to change the
feel up a little bit so you get the idea.
You don't have to set, play a set thing, a set feel, a set time. You can even
experiment with playing in 6/8 if you want have a go at doing that.
The idea is just to get used to what these chord sequence sounds like.
Last one we're going to check out uses a different chord which is a
II chord so we're going to have II, V, I, VI. OK? Chord II in the
key of C was Dmin, V is G, I is C, VI is Amin. So we have this
Dmin, G, C Amin, again Dmin, G, C, Amin.
Experiment. See what you can come up with. Theres some chord progressions.
These are probably the most common 5 chord progressions around but there
are others, there are many others and it depends on the genre and the style
that you want to play and all of that. But the purpose of this lesson is just
to open a new box for you, for you, and go the songs use chord progressions
some are very specific for a specific song, others are very commonly used
over many songs. There all worth learning. By learning the standard
and common chord sequences is really good for your ear if you
try to work out a song on your own or try to guess how a song goes in
your ear and it's also a eally good starting point if you want to get
into song writing. So there's lot's and lot's of great things
about learning and exploring chord progressions.