written by Scott Fritzinger, scottf@scs.unr.edu..All rights reserved ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Lesson #6- Chord progressions... this "lesson" is straight forward... and pretty short too! but, it'll give you something else to mess around with.. :) Anyways, what do i mean by the term "chord progression"? i'm glad you asked.. a chord progression is the sequence of the chords in a song... maybe an example is needed.... Let's say a song has these three chords in the verse... : D G A D ... and they are played in that order... then, D G A D would be the chord progression... get it? ... ok, now that that's out the way, lets dig into the meat-and-bones of the "lesson" (ok.. maybe a sick and disgusting choice of words... sorry to all the vegitarians out there! :) ) now, try picking up your guitar and playing those three chords in that order (D G A D)... sound kinda wholesome?? well, it should if your guitar is in tune and you're playing the right chords.. ;) ... hehe... anyways, notice how when you play the A, there is a sort of "tension"? and when you go back to the D after that, there is a "release" of tension? well, what you just played was called the 1-4-5 chord progression (i'll show you why its called that in a sec).. but, the basis behind that being the MOST popular chord progression (which it is) is because there is that tension and release.. (it plays on the emotions believe it or not..) if you listen to practically ANY song today (especially classical music), there is a "climax" in the song where it may the the loudest, or might have the highest note... that is the tension.. and the part after that would (hopefully) be the release... (god know how many times i've heard a song, and there wasn't a release after all that tension, and when the song is over i screamed "that was it?" :) ) ok.. now you know ABOUT the 1-4-5 (or as most people write it.. the I-IV-V) progression, but now i'll show you how to figure it out... :) this part goes back to scales... the major scale in particular... let's take the D major scale for example.. (if you don't know how to get this, go back to "lesson" #5).... D major scale: D E F# G A B C# D the reason it is called the I-IV-V is because the root notes of the chords are the 1st, 4th and 5th notes in the D major scale.. check it out: D E F# G A B ...... 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ whoah... funny how that works.... you can do this to any major scale... let's try the C major scale and figure out: C major: C D E F G A B C and here it is: C D E F G A....... 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ so, the I-IV-V progression for a C would be C-F-G (goin' back to C is optional... it's up to you... but remember, having all that tension build up and not being relieved will tick off your audience! ;) ) one more "some-what" popular progression would be the 1-3-4 (or the I-III-IV) use the same method as above to figure it out... (example: for a C, the progression would be C-E-F )... **PLEASE REMEMBER- these progressions are by NO means a template for writing songs.. they are just basic tools you help you understand music a little better... i am just trying to get across to you what tension-release is and this is the best way i know how :).... please don't let this "lesson" limit your playing at all... play around... remember: notable musicians broke the molds... :) Interesting fact- remember how i told you that i would show you how to play over half of the songs off of Rancid's new album? well..:) ... throughout practically the whole thing they use a I-IV-V progression .. :) (and for those of you who don't know who the hell rancid is, then this means nothing... so... i'll be on my merry way!) LAST THING!-- you can play these progressions any way you want using barre chords or Open-fingering chords (that's the term for the chords i showed you that are not barre chords)... but, if you use barre chords, you'll notice a "shape" to the I-IV-V progression... ONE MORE THING! (promise)- you might hear of the "12-bar-blues" from time to time.. and that progression is an extremely popular one... it uses the I-IV-V progression, but in a different order... and it lasts for 12 musical bars.. (for those interested, here it is: take a C-F-G for example... (the number in parenthesis tells how many bars to play that chord) C (2) , F (2) , C (2) , F (2) , G (1) , F (1) , C (1) , G (1) now you can play the blues.. :) have fun strumming... next time- The Pentatonic!! .. woo-woo!...