Learning the Basic Chord Progressions

What is a Chord Progression?

A chord progression (or harmonic progression) is the term we use to describe moving from one chord to another. We can describe progressions using the chord names. For example,  CM –FM-GM-CM

But using the chord names doesn’t tell us about the chord relationships. As you’ll discover, chord relationships are the secret to understanding progressions. That’s why we use roman numerals to describe them. Below is the same progression described using roman numerals. Next to it is the same progression in D major. By using roman numerals, we know that the progressions are exactly the same, only the key is different:

I will be using keyboard scoring for most of the examples, so you can see how they look and feel on the keyboard.

Three Basic Progressions

It may seem like the number of possible chord progressions is overwhelming. Yes, there are many progressions, however, there are only three possible ways one chord can move to another:

1. Progression by Second

One chord can move to another by going up a 2nd or down a 2nd. Remember that a 2nd inverts to a 7th, but, in chord progressions, we always refer to the smaller interval (The bass notes below represent the roots of the chords):

The ascending 2nd (↑2nd) tends to be the most common.

2. Progression by Third

One chord can move to another by going up a third or down a third. Again, we never refer to a chord progression as going up or down a 6th (the inversion of a 3rd):

The descending 3rd (↓3rd) tends to be the most common.

3. Progression by 4th or 5th

Because the 4th and 5th are so close, they tend to be used interchangeably. For example, “up a 4th” is the same as “down a 5th,” and so on. We’ll discover, however, that the descending 5th (↓5th) is one of the most common and strongest chord progressions.

Next, we’ll learn the smoothest possible way to get from one chord to another in four voices.

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