Estimated reading time 4 minutes
Table of Contents
Chord Progression (Including the 12 Bar Blues) #1: Piano and Guitar Chord Progressions
What’s a chord progression? It’s when you have a sequence of successive harmonies. In this post, we’ll look at common chord progressions, including rock n roll, the 12 bar blues, and jazz chord progressions. These can work as either piano chord progressions or guitar chord progressions. Read Chord Progression (Including the 12 Bar Blues) to learn the harmonic structure for these three styles of music.
This article uses musical terms. For definitions, see the Glossary at the end of the post.
Chord Progression (Including the 12 Bar Blues) #2: Rock n Roll Harmonies
Before you go further in Chord Progression (Including the 12 Bar Blues) you need to know how Roman numeral analysis works. For a review of Roman numeral analysis:
- Explain Roman Numeral Analysis in Layman’s Terms for Me
- Tonic vs. Root in Music Theory
- What Exactly Does I7-vi7-V7 Mean?
- What’s the Deal with These iv-V-VII Triads?
Our first sequence of triads is a classic I vi IV V rock n roll song:
- The I vi IV V piano and guitar chord progression gets repeated in the verse of the song Earth Angel.
- This song is in the key of Ab major. If you look at the chart below, you can see notes for each triad.
- Notice how vi can substitute for I. This works because the harmonies both share two notes.
In the next section we’ll look at jazz chord progressions.
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Video: Earth Angel
Chord Progression (Including the 12 Bar Blues) #3: Jazz Chord Progressions
Our next chord sequence is a II-7 V7 pattern (we’ll do the 12 bar blues chord progression in the next section). You’ll find many different types of jazz chord progressions, but the II-7 V7 is one of the most common.
The II-7 V7 pattern can be found in the big band piece Take the “A” Train.
- Jazz doesn’t have a verse-chorus structure, instead it has a “head” section that gets continually repeated. Thus, the harmonies from the head section will repeat for the instrumental solos too.
- The song starts with a four-bar intro. The chords from the head-section are shown below.
- Unlike the last song, this piece uses jazz style Roman numeral analysis.
- If you look at the chart below, you can see which notes each chord contains.
- The II-7 V7 pattern can be found in bars 5 – 6 and 16 – 17.
- The C7 functions as a V7 of IV (secondary dominant), which helps lead into the next melody phrase.
- The D7 (b5) in bar 3 and the D7 in bar 14 look like secondary dominants. However, they function more like modal interchange triads (i.e., harmonies borrowed from a parallel mode).
Video: Take the “A” Train
Chord Progression (Including the 12 Bar Blues) #4: 12 Bar Blues Guitar Chord Progressions
Like the jazz chord progression, the 12 bar blues has a head-section that gets repeated.
- You can see this in Sweet Home Chicago’s harmonic structure.
- The song alternates sung verses with instrumental solos – all this happens over the same harmonies.
- And each section is 12 bars long (thus the name).
- Notice the IV7 in bar 2.
- Called the “quick change,” this added harmony is a common variation in blues guitar chord progressions.
- Overall, the Roman numerals reflect each harmony’s position in the scale.
- However, in some ways it’s better to think of the blues as changing keys every time you switch harmonies.
If you look at the charts for the keys of A major, D major, and E major, you’ll see that each key has a V7 sonority that corresponds to one of the blues seventh chords.
- If you begin and end on the fifth scale tone in each chart, this gives you the modes E, A, and B mixolydian.
- You can use these modes for soloing: E mixolydian with E7, A mixolydian with A7, and B mixolydian with B7.
- However, you can also use the minor pentatonic scales.
- Use E minor pentatonic (E G A B D E) to solo over E7.
- A minor pentatonic (A C D E G A) goes over A7.
- Use B minor pentatonic (B D E F# A B) to solo over B7.
- Or you can mix the minor pentatonic scales in with the mixolydian scales for a blues scale-like effect.
The chromatic mismatch between the pentatonic scales and the harmonic tones (e.g., G and G# in E blues) creates the “blue note” sound.
Video: Sweet Home Chicago
Video: 12 Bar Blues Guitar Chord Progressions
Chord Progression (Including the 12 Bar Blues) #5: Final Thoughts
Here’s a summary of Chord Progression (Including the 12 Bar Blues):
- Early rock n roll styles use the I vi IV V progression.
- II-7 V7 is common in jazz chord progressions.
- While the 12 bar blues has many variants, the one shown above is one of the most common.
Each style of music has its own characteristic patterns.
Related Posts
- Changing Keys in Your Songwriting
- Do You Want Cool Triads for Your Song?
- D’you Want Some Music Tips and Tricks I’ve Learned Over the Years?
© 2024 Geoffrey Keith
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