The great progressions – free music theory course

A handful of chord progressions keep coming back, from Bach to today's songs. Knowing them by heart — by ear and under your fingers, in several keys — means owning the basic vocabulary of tonal music.

I – IV – V – I: the foundation

Tonic, subdominant, dominant, tonic: the tonal phrase reduced to its essence. In C: C – F – G – C. Blues, rock'n'roll, folk and thousands of popular songs derive from it.

I – V – vi – IV: the “pop” progression

C – G – Am – F. It loops under a dizzying number of recent songs. Its 1950s variant, I – vi – IV – V (C – Am – F – G), is the “doo-wop” progression.

M:4/4
L:1/4
%%staves {RH LH}
V:RH clef=treble
V:LH clef=bass
K:C
[V:RH] "C"[EGc]4 | "G"[DGB]4 | "Am"[EAc]4 | "F"[FAc]4 |]
[V:LH] C,4 | G,,4 | A,,4 | F,,4 |]

ii – V – I: the heart of jazz

Dm7 – G7 – Cmaj7. Predominant, dominant, tonic, with the bass falling in fifths. It gets a whole chapter of its own (jazz).

The circle progression (sequence of fifths)

Each bass note falls a fifth (or rises a fourth): I – IV – vii° – iii – vi – ii – V – I. In C: C – F – B° – Em – Am – Dm – G – C. It drives countless Baroque pieces (Vivaldi, Bach, Handel) and jazz standards. Notice how little each right-hand voice moves:

M:4/4
L:1/4
%%staves {RH LH}
V:RH clef=treble
V:LH clef=bass
K:C
[V:RH] "C"[CEG]2 "F"[CFA]2 | "Bdim"[DFB]2 "Em"[EGB]2 | "Am"[EAc]2 "Dm"[FAd]2 | "G7"[FBd]2 "C"[EGc]2 |]
[V:LH] C,2 F,,2 | B,,2 E,2 | A,,2 D,2 | G,,2 C,2 |]

Pachelbel's Canon

I – V – vi – iii – IV – I – IV – V. In D major (the original key): D – A – Bm – F♯m – G – D – G – A. A bass line stepping down, repeated 28 times beneath ever richer variations: the ancestor of the pop progression. Play it in the Pieces section!

The Andalusian cadence

In minor: i – VII – VI – V. In A minor: Am – G – F – E. A bass descending stepwise from A to E, the final major chord (E, with G♯) giving its Spanish colour. You hear it in flamenco, but also in Baroque music (the “lament bass”) and rock.

M:4/4
L:1/4
%%staves {RH LH}
V:RH clef=treble
V:LH clef=bass
K:Am
[V:RH] "Am"[EAc]4 | "G"[DGB]4 | "F"[CFA]4 | "E"[B,E^G]4 |]
[V:LH] A,,4 | G,,4 | F,,4 | E,,4 |]

Practice method: for each progression, 1) play it in C with voicings that barely move, 2) sing the bass while playing, 3) transpose it to G and F, 4) improvise a melody over it with the site's backing tracks.

Don't confuse I–V–vi–IV with vi–IV–I–V: same chords in a different rotation, but the perceived tonal centre shifts (bright major on one side, minor colour on the other).