Pad Chord Progressions
Stanisha Kunselman
In a musical composition, a chord progression or harmonic progression (informally chord changes, used as a plural) is a succession of chords. Chord progressions are the foundation of harmony in Western musical tradition from the common practice era of Classical music to the 21st century. Chord progressions are the foundation of popular music styles (e.g., pop music, rock music), traditional music, as well as genres such as blues and jazz. In these genres, chord progressions are the defining feature on which melody and rhythm are built.
The complexity of a chord progression varies from genre to genre and over different historical periods. Some pop and rock songs from the 1980s to the 2010s have fairly simple chord progressions. Funk emphasizes the groove and rhythm as the key element, so entire funk songs may be based on one chord. Some jazz-funk songs are based on a two-, three-, or four-chord vamp. Some punk and hardcore punk songs use only a few chords. On the other hand, bebop jazz songs may have 32-bar song forms with one or two chord changes every bar.
A chord may be built upon any note of a musical scale. Therefore, a seven-note diatonic scale allows seven basic diatonic triads, each degree of the scale becoming the root of its own chord.[1] A chord built upon the note E is an E chord of some type (major, minor, diminished, etc.) Chords in a progression may also have more than three notes, such as in the case of a seventh chord (V7 is particularly common, as it resolves to I) or an extended chord. The harmonic function of any particular chord depends on the context of the particular chord progression in which it is found.[2]
The diatonic harmonization of any major scale results in three major triads, which are based on the first, fourth, and fifth scale degrees. The triads are referred to as the tonic chord (in Roman numeral analysis, symbolized by "I"), the subdominant chord (IV), and the dominant chord, (V), respectively.[3] These three triads include, and therefore can harmonize, every note of that scale. Many simple traditional music, folk music and rock and roll songs use only these three chord types (e.g. The Troggs' "Wild Thing", which uses I, IV and V chords).
The same major scale also has three minor chords, the supertonic chord (ii), mediant chord (iii), and submediant chord (vi), respectively. These chords stand in the same relationship to one another (in the relative minor key) as do the three major chords, so that they may be viewed as the first (i), fourth (iv) and fifth (v) degrees of the relative minor key. For example, the relative minor of C major is A minor, and in the key of A minor, the i, iv and v chords are A minor, D minor and E minor. In practice, in a minor key, the third of the dominant chord is often raised by one semitone to form a major chord (or a dominant seventh chord if the seventh is added).
Although there are many possible progressions, in practice, progressions are often limited to a few bars' lengths and certain progressions are favored above others. There is also a certain amount of fashion in which a chord progression is defined (e.g., the 12-bar blues progression) and may even help in defining an entire genre.[citation needed]
In western classical notation, chords are numbered with Roman numerals. Other types of chord notation have been devised, from figured bass to the chord chart. These usually allow or even require a certain amount of improvisation.
Diatonic scales such as the major and minor scales lend themselves particularly well to the construction of common chords because they contain many perfect fifths. Such scales predominate in those regions where harmony is an essential part of music, as, for example, in the common practice period of western classical music. In considering Arab and Indian music, where diatonic scales are used, there are also available a number of non-diatonic scales, the music has no chord changes, remaining always upon the key-chord, an attribute which has also been observed in hard rock, hip hop,[5] funk, disco,[6] jazz, etc.
Three-chord progressions are more common since a melody may then dwell on any note of the scale. They are often presented as successions of four chords (as shown below), in order to produce a binary harmonic rhythm, but then two of the four chords are the same.
Three-chord progressions provide the harmonic foundation of much African and American popular music, and they occur sectionally in many pieces of classical music (such as the opening bars of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony[9]).
Steedman (1984) proposed that a set of recursive rewrite rules generate all well-formed transformations of jazz, both basic blues chord changes and slightly modified sequences (such as the "rhythm changes"). Important transformations include:
This progression had been in use from the earliest days of classical music and then generated popular hits such as Rodgers and Hart's "Blue Moon" (1934)[11] and Hoagy Carmichael's "Heart and Soul" (1938).[12]
As well as the cyclical underpinning of chords, the ear tends to respond well to a linear thread; chords following the scale upwards or downwards. These are often referred to as step progressions[16] because they follow the steps of the scale, making the scale itself a bassline. In the 17th century, descending bass lines found favour for "divisions on the ground", so that Pachelbel's canon contains very similar harmonizations of the descending major scale.
... during 1960s some pop groups started to experiment with modal chord progressions as an alternative way of harmonizing blues melodies. ... This created a new system of harmony that has influenced subsequent popular music.
This came about partly from the similarity of the blues scale to modal scales and partly from the characteristics of the guitar and the use of parallel major chords on the pentatonic minor scale. With barre chords on guitar, the same chord shape can be moved up and down the neck without changing the fingering. This phenomenon is also linked to the rise in use of power chords in various sub-genres of rock music.
Choose any Beginner hook you like (1 green dot) (Songs that have only I, IV, V, and vi chords.)
then I would change the key to C (without looking at the chords smiley ) and try to play it on your piano. Eventually you will hear it without your Piano (note: for guitar I choose key of G).
I turned 39 today and have been playing guitar, bass since I was 10. But not always practising/training.
I think I really took off in my ability to hear where chords were going when I was teaching guitar for a couple of years.
In terms of how you listen to songs.
I turn up the bass and begin with the bass notes of chords.
Be very careful with poor computer speakers (laptop speakers) as often they miss the bass guitar frequency which is a big tell-tale signal for the chord in question.
Then I did the same for minor keys, and eventually I started hearing differences and similarities. I also experimented by playing different variations just by listening with my guitar and came up with my own progressions to memorize and see if I could hear similarities with other songs.
Whenever I compose music, my melodies tend to gravitate towards the predictable I-V-vi-IV in Major, or i-VI-III-VII in minor. Is there something I can do to avoid having such basic or predictable chord progressions, or is this not a problem?
Different modes such as the Dorian, Phrygian, etc, are mostly just ways to express which chord is the resolution chord. For example, That progression that you mention (except with a vi replacing the I) is used in the MW3 theme by Brian Tyler which I put as D Dorian but could easily just by written as C major, A minor, whatever have you.
I've been reading over Walter Piston's Harmony book, and it has been an eye-opener to say the least. I understand concepts like tension and release, voice leading and so forth, but I still don't quite understand the process of generating harmonic patterns other than by trial and error, or composing as a whole. I understand many things that I didn't before, but there seems to be so much more when I listen to a piece by Sibelius, Mahler, or Mozart. To be honest, I expected a kind of harmonic revelation in the sense that I would have a way to understand (in a very limited sense) and analyze works, but this is simply not the case.
It makes sense now that you can make a piece using simply I V I, and I have seen many such examples, but I still don't really understand what the composer is thinking from when he starts at I and makes his way to V. I still don't really understand how to think about harmonic progressions in a way that is useful (meaning in a way that will help me write my own music). These pieces that I hear seem like they have written themselves... so my conclusion is that I am doing it wrong.
Great question - I remember when I myself was confused about this very same thing many years ago, and indeed at first, it all seems completely random. In order to answer your question, there needs to be a little background:
Historically, thinking about music in terms of harmonic progression is one that has really only come to complete prominence in the last 150 years or so (not very long when considering the past 2000 years...) Mozart was coming out of the Baroque period, and during that time, many people thought of music linearly - as in, vertical harmonies are the result of linear motion, not the other way around. Mahler and Sibelius are a little more difficult to pin-down - Sibelius wrote a lot of programmatic and nature-oriented music, and through his technique of teleological genesis could be argued that in his own way, he was thinking linearly (or perhaps by phrase modules) moreso than harmonically, but I digress.
It is important to remember that in addition to the composers you mentioned, many other composers thought about larger implications of key relationships, and as a result, invented a myriad number of devices to facilitate movement between these relationships. These devices (tonicization, modulation, chromatic saturation) and many others would take too long to describe accurately in a simple answer. But, it is important to remember that they used these devices, and you have not begun to use them. Therefore, your music will not sound like there music.
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