As a music teacher and performer for many years, I have seen a lot of guitarists and songwriters hold themselves back by not learning more advanced chord progressions. Chord progressions provide harmonic movement to a song, so there’s no denying that the right chord progression will make your music stand out.
The basic progressions we all know and love to use can be used to play thousands of songs that all sound different. The difference is because of the melodies, tone, and numerous other things that each artist does to make the song their own.
In order to improve your playing, let’s now look at a few progressions you may want to start using after having a decent understanding of how chord progressions work.
Chord progressions that will improve your playing are progressions like:
- Circle Progressions based on the 5th degree of the root note,
- Suspended chord progressions that make your chords sound more interesting
- Dominant chord progressions to change up the mood of your chords, and
- Ascending and descending bass note progressions.
All these tricks can be learned easily and implemented immediately in your playing to make you a better player.
I always make it clear to my students that in order to make a great chord progression, they need to have resolved at the end that brings them back to the beginning of the progression.
The new techniques you will learn in this lesson are based on the building blocks of chords we already know and love. It should only take some minor tweaking for your playing and songs to improve.
What is a chord progression?
A chord progression is a series of chords that are used in sequence to create the harmonic movement of a song. There exist songs with or without chord progressions.
The songs without chord progressions string together a series of riffs in the same key, usually creating a piece of music. You need to know that chord progressions are different from riffs, although they can sound like riffs. The main difference that sets them apart is that a chord progression is understood by another musician just by naming the progression. However, this is not the case for a riff.
For instance, if you named off a C Major I-IV-V, any musician that knows what a Major scale is will play C-F-G without hesitation. If you asked the same musician to play a cool new riff you came up with, it would take more listening and playing skills to understand your new riff. This is why chord progressions are more practical and valuable.
There are many different variations of chord progressions, and there are also infinite ways to link them together in a song. The ones primarily used are familiar and remind us of other songs we know and love, while others seem so one of a kind because most artists don’t use them. Let’s look at some familiar ones before we go into the ones that will improve your playing.
Major I-IV-V
We will use the key of C as an example for the Major I-IV-V progression. This progression has only three chords, all of the chords are Major chords, so the feeling of this progression is happy, uplifting, and familiar. More information on constructing major chord progressions can be found here.
| Major | I | IV | V |
|---|---|---|---|
| C Major | C | F | G |
Minor I-IV-V
We will again use the key of C minor as an example for this progression. This chord progression might arguably be the most used in modern music because it’s easy to play, and it gives a different sad or melancholy sound which many songwriters love.
More information about how to construct Minor Chord progressions can be found here
| Minor | I | IV | V |
|---|---|---|---|
| C Minor | Cm | Fm | Gm |
12 Bar Blues – Southern Style
This chord progression might be the most used in music overall. From the southern roots of the blues, this progression is just one variation of the 12 Bar Blues but is also one of the most well-known versions.
| 12 Bar Blues in C Major | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| I | I | I | I |
| C | C | C | C |
| IV | IV | I | I |
| F | F | C | C |
| V | IV | I | I |
| G | F | C | C |
Classic Do-Wop I-vi-IV-V
This is a standard progression from the 1950’s Do-Wop era, and if you have ever played any of these songs, you are familiar with this progression. In this progression, we use the familiar I-IV-V pattern but with an added vi after the I.
| Do- Wop | I | vi | IV | V |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C Major | C | Am | F | G |
Jazz Standard ii-V-I
Jazz is an interesting genre of music as it highlights the player in a way that most music does not. It allows for soloing and interpretation while each musician hangs on to the chord progression in unison.
This progression can be found in many Jazz standards you may want to get a feel for. We are using C Major again for this example. Notice how this progression starts on the ii and not the I. The key is still C Major, but we start on the ii, which is B in this case.
| Jazz Standard | ii | V | I |
|---|---|---|---|
| C Major | B | F | C |
These are just a few of the many chord progressions out there, and they will help you with your playing, but the following progressions will help take your playing to the next level. These progressions are common but have some extra flair to them that will help you break out of the standard progression box.
Circle Progression
This progression basses itself around 5ths. In the example below, we will be using the key of C Major. This progression can have as many changes as you want it to. The idea is to keep the 5ths as your next focus point. The Root or Tonic is C, the 5th of C major is G, the next chord would be the 5th of C, which is D.
We could stop there and resolve back to the root or tonic, but let’s take it a step further and go to the next 5th, which is A. This chord progression is what Paul McCartney used in Maybe I’m Amazed. If you went one more 5th of this C Minor Circle Progression, you have Jimmy Hendrix’s masterpiece, Hey Joe!
C Major Circle Chord Progression
| Major Circle Progression | I | V | 2-V | 3-V | 4-V |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maybe I’m Amazed | C | G | D | A | |
| Hey Joe | C | G | D | A | E |
Suspended Chords
On paper, Suspended Chords sound daunting, but the best way to think about them is you are just moving one note of your chord. This one note is going to give your chords a lot more personality.
You hear these kinds of chords in many players that emphasize a lot of their music through their guitar, like Eric Johnson or Steve Vai. The chord sounds similar to most chords we hear, but they seem to have more personality.
If you were to play a I-IV-V chord progression in D major, you would play D, G, and A. Adding in a few suspended chords might look more like D, Dsus2, A, or D Dsus4, G, A. You can be very creative with where you add in your suspensions to get different feels.
A suspended chord moves the 3rd of the chord to the suspended degree, So, if I had a D chord that was made up of the notes D, F, and A, my Dsus2 would move the F to the 2nd degree instead of the 3rd, which is E.
If I wanted to play a Dsus4, I would move the F from the 3rd degree to the 4th, and I would play the notes D, G, A.
Experiment with the suspended chords and make up your own progressions, you’ll be amazed at how easy this is and how effective it can be for songwriters.
Suspensions I-IV-V
| Major With Suspended Chords | I | sus2 | sus4 | IV | V |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D Major | D | Dsus2 | G | A | |
| A Major | A | Asus4 | D | E | |
| C Major | C | Csus2 | Csus4 | F | G |
Dominant Chords I-IV-V
These chords can get a little confusing if you don’t already have a good grip on music theory. To make it simple, they are built around the 5th degree of the root.
If your root is C, it becomes the 5th degree of C which is G, and your chord or triad would now be G-B-D, then you add the 3rd degree above the 5th note. Suspended chords can be extended to Dominant ninth, eleventh and thirteenth dominant chords as well.
| Dominant Chords | I | IV | V |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Dominant | A7 | D7 | E7 |
Ascending Bass I-ii-I-IV
Ascending bass notes in your chord progression can be moody and interesting. In the examples below, you can see two progressions that use the ii chord, which is minor. However, you should notice the second I chord has a slash which means you’ll add a bass note to the existing chord.
The chord progression is also ascending chromatically, making it easy to figure out what comes next. In the first example, we use the key of G Major. The progression will be G, Am, G/B, C. The G/B is an open G chord but the root changes from G to B.
You’ll play the B on the second fret of the A string and the G in the high e string playing the notes D, G, and B as open notes.
| Ascending Bass | I | ii | I | IV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | G | Am | G/B | C |
| C | C | Dm | C/E | F |
Descending Bass V-IV-I
This chord progression is the exact opposite of the last progression. You are just going to move your bass note down the musical staff instead of up. Starting in D, you’ll play D, C, and G/B so that the bass note is descending from D to C and then to B.
| Descending Bass | V | IV | I |
|---|---|---|---|
| D | D | C | G/B |
| E | E | D | A/C# |
Now use the charts that have been given to you and transpose all the keys in each new progression we covered. With a little bit of practice, you’ll be playing more interesting music, and you’ll become a better player as well.
