As my previous post on standard chord progression has been sitting at the top of my ‘top posts’ list for quite a while, I thought I’d write a follow-up.
These progressions all come with a warning – they have been used extensively before, you might want to add your own variations. However, sometimes we need to compose quickly, and using a standard progression can save you a lot of time (another option is to just use one chord).
The progressions from the previous post were:
- C Am F G (used in Stand by Me, Every Breath you Take and many more)
- C G Am F (used in all sorts including ‘Today’ by the Smashing Pumpkins)
- Twelve Bar Blues: C C C C F F C C G F C C (each chord for a bar. Used in countless blues and rock ‘n’ roll numbers)
- Circle of fifths: C F Bb Eb Ab Db etc (lots of variations on this, often used in Jazz standards)
- C Bb F (As used in Sweet Home Alabama)
- Em C D (a common heavy rock/metal progression. See: most Iron Maiden songs)
To which we can add:
- Em C G D (as used in the chorus of the mildly obscure, but very good Bruce Dickinson song above, as well as countless others.)
- C Am D7 G7 (a common jazz turn around, mildly cheesey. Turn the D7 back into a Dminor if you want).
- Am F E7 (the basis of a great many songs, for example Seven Nation Army by the White Strips)
Just to be nice, I’ve put all of these into a handy PDF worksheet. Print yourself out a copy for reference, or to pass on to others. I’m a teacher, and I know we teachers can always use a worksheet to hand out: Click Here
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[...] Basics – Standard Chord Progressions 2 [...]
Thanks for this blog. I enjoy refrencing them. I am a songwriter so things on songwriting are very helpful. I don’t want to write songs that sound like hundereds of others so taking a look at standard run of the mill progessions helps to break out of that. Thanks again and keep up the good work.