Chord progressions are the backbone of the song. They are basically a serious of chords played in the same key that make up the song. With the chord progressions as the backbone it sets the rules as to what notes can be played. It determines where the harmonies of the song will be played, and where the melody will be able to go. If the wrong note is played you will be able to pick it out and it will sound completely out of place. The purpose of the chord progression is also to set the tone for the piece of music.

A chord is built upon a note from a musical scale. If you have a 7 note scale, that allows for a chord progression of 7 chords. Say the first note is an A in that scale, you would first play an A chord. Perhaps it is followed by the note of C, in which case you would then play a C chord. With this type of musical system there is no limit to the tones and chord progressions that you can create with this knowledge.

An example of some chord progressions would be: from the key of C: C, Am, Dm, G; from the key of A: A, D, E, A.
As you develop your ear for music, and this is not necessary if you are a beginner but it is some food for thought, you will begin to be able to recognize chord progressions. Progressions are normally referred to by a system of numbers that represents each chord’s place within its key. Previously I mentioned how we have seen the scale comes out with seven chords. The chords in this progression are numbered from one to seven represented by roman numerals. Upper case roman numerals are used for Majors, and lower case numerals are used for Minors.

Any amount of chords, even repeating, can be picked out of a key and be used to create a song. As an example, the C Major scale is: I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii, i. These numerals represent the chords C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Lets say you pick out four chords for a song, such as I, IV, ii, vi. The chords you will then be playing are C, F, Dm, and Am. With this system of music if you wanted to change the key you would change the chords you would play. They would sound exactly same as before, but they would just be in a different pitch and in one of the eleven other keys. This would allow someone with a different vocal ability to sing the same song, but in a key that fits their voice most properly.

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