Coming full circle
You may remember that, at the beginning of this section, I promised to come back with a number of different interpretations of the same chord progression:
G D | Em | C | D7 | G D | Em | A7 | D7 | G | G7 | C | Cm | Cm | G | Em | Am | D6 | G. This is a pretty standard 16 bar sequence, with a hold for an extra bar on the Cm
And here’s a reminder of what this sounds like played on acoustic guitar and piano:
My first example sticks to these chords rigidly. It’s called That’s the Way it Starts:
I moved on to a second example. This was much harder than I expected, because it’s really hard to get the first melody out of your head while you’re working on the second one. In the end I had to leave it a few weeks before coming back to it.
I ended up with a much lusher ballad called Every Woman Every Man. As you can see below, I took the liberty of enriching the chords:
Intro / finish: Gmaj7 | Em7 | Am7 | D9 D7
Verse: Gmaj7 | Em7 | Cmaj9 | D9 | Gmaj7 | Em7 | Am7 | D9 (repeated)
Chorus: Gmaj7 | G7 | C | Cm7 | Cm6 | Gmaj7 | Em7 | Am7 | D6
Instruments used on these two tracks:
Acoustic guitar: Strummed Acoustic from Native Instruments
Piano: The Gentleman from Native Instruments
Lead guitar (That’s the Way it Starts): Fender Stratocaster through Guitar Rig 6
Lead guitar (Every Woman Every Man): Vintage Electric from Native Instruments
Bass: VB-Dandy from ujam
Drums: Studio Drummer from Native Instruments
A we saw earlier with the Beatles’ Something, some chord progressions are so distinctive that they practically dictate the melody. Other progressions form a foundation for any number of melodies. On the Hook Theory Blog, they analysed the chords of 1300 popular songs for patterns. Surprisingly, at least for me, the chord sequence that appeared the most often was this:
I V vi IV
which, in the key of C, would be
C G Am F
Two good examples of this progression would be Let it Be by the Beatles and Edge of Glory by Lady Gaga. There are probably thousands more, crossing many different styles.
A whole genre of music has been based upon one sequence. We’re talking, of course, about the 12-bar blues:
Bar | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
Chord | I | I or IV | I | I | IV | IV | I | I | V | IV | I | I |
Example: Key of E | E | E or A | E | E | A | A | E | E | B | A | E | E |
In conclusion, it seems that the progression of chords has only a limited influence on what the finished piece ends up sounding like. All sorts of melodies and treatments can be built upon a common base. It’s very unusual for a composer to devise a completely original chord sequence, although it’s worth trying!
Always progressing
That’s all for now in the Progressions corner of the lab. As you can imagine, this is a tale that grows with the telling so I’m sure I’ll be adding more at some stage soon.