Essential Chord Progressions - Sample Chords for Players of Guitar and Piano, and for Songwriters

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Chord Progressions - Get Your Next Song Started with One of These

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by Gary Ewer - music clinician/ teacher/ composer/ arranger

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LET'S START

Whether you play guitar, piano, or some other chording instrument, you're here for some chord progressions that work! So let's start with a few.

Then I want to explain how chords work, and why so many songs FAIL at the chord progression stage of writing. (If you're suffering from writer's block, click here.)

SIMPLE PROGRESSIONS (all given in C-major):

C Dm G C
C Dm7 G C
C Fmaj7 G7 C

PROGRESSIONS THAT END ON A DIFFERENT CHORD:

C F Am G
C Dm G Am
C Am Em G

PROGRESSIONS THAT USE DIMINISHED CHORDS:

(What's a diminished chord?)

C F Fdim7 C
C Dm Bdim C

PROGRESSIONS THAT USE INVERTED CHORDS:

(What's an inverted chord?)

C C/E F G C
C G/B F/A G C
C G/B Am F G G/B C

PROGRESSIONS THAT USE SECONDARY DOMINANT CHORDS:

(What's a secondary dominant chord?)

C A Dm G C
C E A Dm G C

PROGRESSIONS THAT USE MODAL MIXTURES:

(What's a modal mixture chord?)

C F Fm C
C C/E Fm G C

CHORD PROGRESSIONS MAY NOT BE YOUR ONLY PROBLEM!

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Everything you've ever needed to know about getting your songs to work, including:

tons of chord progressions you can use right now in your songs!
how to come up with chord progressions that make sense!
a chart of STRONG progressions and FRAGILE ones!
how to write a melody that has shape, and suits your lyric to a 'T'.
why verse melodies should be different from chorus melodies!
how to write a hook that gets the listener's attention, and has them humming YOUR songs ALL DAY LONG!
why a good lyric does NOT necesssarily mean good poetry;
how to compose every vital part of a song with ease... intro, outro, hook, verse, chorus and more.
a step-by-step guide for how to write a song.
how to protect yourself and your songs - what the difference is between performance rights, mechanical rights, copyright, registration... EVERYTHING you need to get yourself out there in the professional world.

CLEARING UP THE MYSTERY ABOUT CHORDS

There is more confusion over the issue of chord changes in a song than almost every other aspect. And more songwriters get stuck at the harmony-stage of writing than any other stage. Let this website clear up the mystery.

THE TWO MOST COMMON PROBLEMS

There are two reasons why chord progressions fail:

CHORD COMPLEXITY
CHORD CONFUSION

A good chord progression is like the land you choose to build your house on: it's got to be more or less smooth, or placing the house will be tricky. And while you want your landscaping to be beautiful to behold, landscaping is all about the house. Good landscaping makes a house look gorgeous!

I want to use this webpage to:

get you started in understanding HOW CHORDS WORK;
GIVE YOU SOME GREAT PROGRESSIONS that you can use right now in your songs;
show you WHERE TO FIND MORE PROGRESSIONS

So let me start by giving you some progressions that work, and then explain exactly why they work.

STRONG and FRAGILE Progressions

This may be the first time you are encountering these terms strong and fragile with regard to chord progressions, and if it is, you haven't seen The Essential Secrets of Songwriting. You need that book to fully understand how to put songs together professionally.

In short, a strong progression is one that strongly points to one chord as being the key. A strong progression will often use chords whose roots are a fourth or fifth apart. Take the following example, in the key of A major:

Chord Example #1: (click here to play)

A F#m Bm E7 A

The second, third, and final chord have roots a perfect fourth away from each other. B is four notes up from F#. E is four notes up from B. And A is four notes up from E. Because of this, EXAMPLE #1 IS A STRONG PROGRESSION.

Now take a look at this one:

Chord Example #2:(click here to play)

D Bm A Bm

This is a good example of what we call a fragile progression. The Chord roots are all a second or third away from each other. Does this make it a bad progression? Certainly not! In fact, it's quite beautiful.

But you have to be careful where you place this progression. We call this a fragile progression because it does not strongly emphasize the key you are in. It could be something from D major, or possibly from A major or F# minor. That kind of ambiguity makes music exciting. BUT you need to know when you should be using this progression.

Skip ahead to more progressions...

VERSES AND CHORUSES

So fragile doesn't mean bad. But you have to know when to use fragile progressions. Here's a good rule of thumb to always consider:

FRAGILE PROGRESSIONS work best in verses.
STRONG PROGRESSIONS work best in choruses.

Not only that, you will discover that the tonic note (i.e., the key note of the piece) will want to appear more often in a chorus than in a verse melody.

It's all part of structuring your music. If you aren't structuring your music in this way, your songs will feel like they lack energy and direction. And there's so much more!

HOW CHORDS WORK

In our songs, we tend to think of all the various chord progressions as just simply... one chord following another. We write one, then... on we go to writing the next. This can result in music that is weak and riddled with failures. It is one of the biggest reasons why songs fail!

So nott all chord progressions are the same. Some progressions are very strong, and we need them in crucial structural moments in our song. Other progressions are less likely to point to a particular note as being the key note. In that sense, they are fragile.

Now - THINK BACK to every piece of music you tried to write, songs you tried to make work. Did any of those failed songs have chords that sounded like... something just wasn't working? I have no doubt at all that those weak songs have fragile progressions where strong ones were needed, and too many strong ones where fragile progressions were needed.

Want even more chord progression help? How about tons of progressions you can use right now, and more!?

Just click here now to open your eyes to the fantastic world of harmony and chord changes!

MORE SAMPLE CHORD PROGRESSIONS

But now... I know you want to get going right away, and so here are some chord progressions you can use right now, chords that will help get you going right away!

1) A F#m Bm E7 F#m (click here to play)
This one ends on F#m, which we call a deceptive cadence

2) A E7sus/B A/C# Dadd9 (click here to play)
This progression features three useful aspects of chord progressions: 1) Pedal tone. In this case, it's the note E that keeps sounding through each chord of the progression. 2) Inversions. An inversion occurs when a note other than the letter name of the chord appears in the bass. 3) Added tones. In this progression, the Dadd9 simply means that you should play an ordinary D major chord, and add the note E to the chord.

3) A D E A F | Bb Eb F Bb (click here to play)
This is a progression that will help you modulate (change key) up a semitone. The progression is in A major, but that F chord at the end of the first bar helps move you into the key of Bb major.

4) A G/A D/A A (click here to play)
This is another example of a progression that uses a pedal tone.

5) A F#m Dm A (click here to play)
And this final progression features what is called a "borrowed" chord, or "modal mixture." The Dm chord normally does not occur in the key of A major: it normally comes from A minor. But for this progression, we "borrow" it from the minor mode to add a bit of colour. in the music world. It's a great way of subtly getting your audience's attention.

DON'T FORGET...

And don't forget... if you really want to know how to get your songs working, and how to start writing the songs that you've always wanted to write, you've got to get "The Essential Secrets of Songwriting" today, and start writing great songs.

Get the first sixteen pages of "The Essential Secrets of Songwriting" NOW!