Free Lesson: Chordal Harmonic Progression

harmonic progression

A chordal harmonic progression can be defined as a succession of musical chords. To clarify, that means a few chords, played one after the other.

The basic foundation of Western Music comes from the harmony created by specific chordal progressions. Today we’re going to have a look at a few simple progressions and what chords can be used in a specific key.

Chords in a Key

First and foremost, do you know what the basic chords for a key are? Yes? Good, you can skip this section and go onto the next. 

If not, or you feel like you could do with a refresher, then read on!

There is a significant variety of chords that you can use in any key. For this lesson, we’re going to look at 14 most common chords. To fully understand chords and harmonic progressions, you should first understand the construction triads. If you are unfamiliar with triad construction, go over this lesson on triads.

Right, by now you should know the basics of chord construction as well as the basic form of the major scale. Let’s work from the G Major scale for the rest of this lesson.

G Major Scale

G  A  B  C   D  E   F#   G
I   II III IV V  VI VII VIII

The Roman numerals below the scale refer to the degree of the scale. To that end, we can see that D is the 5th degree of the scale, and we can also see that A is the 2nd degree.

For the purposes of Harmonic Progressions, you can apply the same theory to all keys. So the second note of a scale will always be the second degree. It really is that simple.

So, how does this apply to your music? Each degree of your scale will always be played as the same chord type.

I – Major or Major 7

II – Minor or Minor 7

III – Minor or Minor 7

IV – Major or Major 7

V – Major or Dominant 7

VI – Minor or Minor 7

VII – Diminished or Half Diminished

To clarify, that means that the first degree of a scale will always be a major or major 7 chord. Similarly, the third degree would be a minor or a minor 7 and the fifth degree would be played as a major or a dominant 7.

So the chords for G Major are:

G / GM7

Am / Am7

Bm / Bm7

C / CM7

D / D7

Em / Em7

F#° / F#m7b5

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Common Progressions

Now that you have a grasp of what chords you can use in a key, let’s take a look at a few common progressions found in Western Music.

Three Chord Tunes

One of the most common elements of Western Music is three-chord songs. That’s not to say that all songs are written with only three chords, but many are. So much so, that Status Quo even released an album entitled “In Search of the Fourth Chord”.

The most common of three-chord progression are:

1) I – IV – V – V: so in the key of G that would be G – C – D – D or GM7 – CM7 – D7 – D7 or any combination of the two

2) I – I – IV – V:

3) I – IV – V – I

4) I – IV – V – IV

Right, by now you should know the basics of chord construction as well as the basic form of the major scale. Let’s work from the G Major scale for the rest of this lesson.

Blues Variants

The twelve bar blues and its many variants use an elongated, three-line form of the I – IV – V progression that has also generated countless hit records, including the most significant output of rock and rollers such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard. In its most elementary form (there are many variants) the chords progress as follows:

I – I – I – I

IV – IV – I – I

V – IV – I – I

In Conclusion

There are many chord progression that we have not touched on in this lesson, but we will expand on this at another time.

Play around with these progressions and see if you can create something that sounds great.

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