What is a chord progression?

According Wikipedia (online Encyclopedia) “A chord progression (also chord sequence and harmonic progression or sequence), as its name implies, is a series of chords played in an order. Part and parcel of this action is the idea that the chords relate to each other in some way, whether closely or distantly, and as a whole become an entity in themselves. Chord progressions are central to most modern European-influenced music and create cyclic or sectional music forms.”[i] This is a fancy way to say that a chord progression is taking three chords and using them in a cycle like in the song “Yellow” we looked at earlier by Cold Play. This song uses the chords B – F# - E in a cycle, meaning, that it keeps repeating the chords.

 

Some songs take a similar progression like G – C – D and use the chords in this progression for the verse and then invert the progression for the chorus. So the song progression may look like this:

Verse Progression: G – C – D

Chorus Progression: D – C – G

The song has more dimension by inverting the progression.  This particular progression is called a 1-4-5 progression. The 1-4-5 progression is commonly referred to as the blues progression and is the most popular progression in rock and blues music. 

The 1-4-5 progression refers to the chord numbers within the progression. Here are the possible notes and their corresponding numbers:

A-B-C-D-E-F-G

1-2-3-4-5-6-7

 So if you were playing a song in the Key of C a 1-4-5 progression may look like this:

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