Chord Progressions

Chords are the very structure of our favorite songs. A chord by itself is sort of like just one word without a sentence it really doesn't say to much. In order to make chords speak out we need to put them together, once we organize the chords into a pattern it becomes a chord progression. There are many chord progressions, we are only going to cover a few in this lesson to get you started.

Building The Progression

If you have studied the theory on the major scale then this lesson will be easier to understand. When we look at the chords we play they are built from the major scale. The first chord built from the scale we call the I(1) chord because it is built from the first note of the scale. This chord is also called the Rest chord because it gives a sense of a beginning or a rest stop within a song or two simply end a song. This chord is a major chord and will be different based on the scale you are using to build it. As in all music nothing is written in stone so you can also use the I chord for many other parts of your song. There are other chords that gives a feeling of moving along a few of these chords are as follows the II (second) chord built from the second note of the major scale and the V (five) chord built from the 5th note. Over the years some very dominant chord progressions have become very popular.

Here are a few of those progressions. Feel free to try some different chord progressions and have fun creating music. Once you get a good progression you love record it and jam some solos in the key of the progression. Please refer to your favorite book or check out my chord tool if you do not know how to play any chords in the below example.
Key	ii V I	I IV V	I V VI IV	I iii IV
A	Bm  E  A	A  D  E	A  E  F#m  D	A  C#m  D
B	C#m  F#  B	B  E  F#	B  F#  Ab  E	B  Ebm  E
C	Dm  G  C	C  F  G	C  G  Am  F	C  Em  F
D	Em  A  D	D  G  A	D  A  Bm  G	D  F#m  G
E	F#m  B  E	E  A  B	E  B  C#m  A	E  Abm  A
F	Gm  C  F	F  Bb  C	F  C  Dm  Bb	F  Am  Bb
G	Am  D  G	G  C  D	G  D  Em  C	G  Bm  C