Chord Progressions S&D

S: I'm all about the descending chord progressions. Put a D-to-C chord progression in your song, and I'm bound to like it.

D: E-A-Bb. Seriously, just retire it already.

Scott Miller uses this one in "Where You Going Northern":
C#m B F# A

And the chorus to "24" is one for the ages:
A Em G
A Em G
C G C F G F G

I think Aflat major (and related) shifting to C major (and related) is almost always beautiful to listen to...has this 'sighing', shimmering-yet-tragic quality to it.

Examples: Moody Blues' "Tuesday Afternoon" (the bridge to the middle part) and "Visions of Paradise"...Bernard Herrmann also uses it to great effect on his scores for Vertigo and Obsession.

I've come to find all that Beatlesy stuff - tons of passing chords and chromaticism and whatnot - a bit decadent and syrupy, although they did it better themselves than most others.

D: E-A-Bb. Seriously, just retire it already.

Hm, what songs use this? That's quite an irregular progression.

Spoon do the chromatic trick quite well - see "Beast and Dragon Adored" and "Don't Make Me a Target".

My favourite chord progression ever might be the one on the Mendoza Line's "The Aragon and Trianon". Coupled with that piano and the woozy harmonies, it just kills me every time.

A new ILX, a new compendium of our intreped hero TuomasSteve staring into the vast seas of mystery.

A new ILX, a new compendium of our intreped hero TuomasSteve staring into the vast seas of mystery
Fake Steve

um, I can't think of any songs that use that progression either

Fake Hurting.

Oh, I see. I thought he meant B minor.

I guess if it was really Bb like he wrote, that'd be pretty crazy.

not that crazy. loop it on your chosen instrument for a few minutes, try humming along with it, and before you know it you'll have written three or four faux grunge songs.

play it super-slow and you have a Black Sabbath song

Oh yeah, "Maria" from West Side Story, no?
(xpost)

j/k

S: G#-Gm-G#-Gm-F-Bb-Db-B

(and feel free to call that Db a C# or whatever. i've never been good at figuring out when to notate flats vs. sharps)

waht song is taht

chorus of gary puckett & the union gap's "young girl"

actually, in spite of what I said above, I've been really liking the Cmaj/Cmaj7/C7/F progression in "I Can't Go For That" - but I think that's because it's kind of surprising coming out of the Cmin and also its sweetness has an irony in the context of the song.

Jeff Buckley doesn't seem to get much love round these parts, but he has a bunch of amazing sequences:

The ascending Em -> B7 -> G6-> A6 bridge bit of Grace

The astounding chorus to Lover, You Should Have Come Over ("so I'll wait for you...") where he goes all the way up the fretboard from D and then back again at twice the speed

The back-and-forth between the two verse bits of So Real

These songs are all about you
And I'm tellin' everyone I'm doin' fine without you
I hurt you but I helped you
You may think I've a lot of nerve
But I deserve some credit
Or at least an edit
Take out the part that breaks my heart
And makes me sound uncaring
If you eliminate the swearing
Then I could show my mother
That you can go from one chord to another

G will turn to D
You'll turn to me
And you'll say
You have done me wrong
I wrote these songs about it

She's aware it's all been done before
It's another song in this key
Yeah but this one's about me
That all the validity she needs
Her criticism's brutal
But I don't really mind
Yeah, she's put it out on vinyl
But it's pretty hard to find, but you'll hear

G will turn to D
You'll turn to me
And you'll say
You have done me wrong
I wrote these songs about it

I wish I'd never taught her how to play
I knew she'd get me I should have known
Now her hands are on the fretboard
In an unfamiliar way
And it's tellin' me
She's aware it's all been done before
It's another song in this key
Yeah but this one's about me
I may not wanna hear the words to

G when put with D
But if you take what you're shown
Learn on your own
Then everything you do
Belongs to you
But know that you are on your own

On your own

the man with the child in his eyes

^ Surmounter

I remember a mate and I trying to work out the chords to the above- I take it you mean the Kate B song- we gave up after a fairly unproductive 5 hours and proceeded to annihilate it with a Black Flag style version we had done in three minutes

Madonna's 'Oh Father ' always reminded me of this song in its chord progression. Probably knowhere near.

Any progression with a 6/9,add9 , major 13th, sus chords slay me. Fuck majors and minors

personally, my favorite progression is Dm Bb F / Bb Am F

Any progression with a 6/9
So you must like Brazilian music.

I'm amazed I haven't posted to this thread already. One thing I like, even though it's super-common, is I --> vi, especially when there's something melodic going on that stays the same as the root changes.

i can see what you mean about O Father, something about a major chord

Destroy:
-I-V-vi-IV was mentioned in the pop songs borrowing from classical music thread. In the key of C major this would be C-G-Am-F.
-similarly, the related minor-chord progression (and excuse me if this is not written according to music theory conventions) i-bVI-bIII-bVII (which is vi-IV-I-V rewritten with the vi as the tonic). In the key of A minor this would be Am-F-C-G.

both are classic formulas for lazy songwriting from the 90s onward.

Yeah, you don't have to use the flat symbols on that one in A minor. Using an accidental for a chord symbol is only if the chord is built on a tone that's not in the scale. (And, of course, all those pitches are a part of the A minor scale.)

that's what I was thinking.

I love the chord progressions in this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka3l1KKZkmw

I'm a sucker for the minor-major flip that was distinctive in early Lennon. New Order used it nicely just before the chorus in True Faith, where it's like the sun coming out

word, "Long Time" by the Roots is largely just a switch back and forth from the minor to the major of the same chord and it sounds damn nice.

lately i've been quite impressed by the semi-complex progression in the building jam at the end of "Stitches" by the Morning Benders.

Rufus Wainwright's "Going to a Town" also has a pretty great, showtune-y sort of progression.

One of my all-time favorite piano house chord progressions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lewbH3jjLBA

so simple yet so effective

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSXUZEcvgBw

Two of my fave chord progressions which I have written about:

The Zombies, A Rose for Emily

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elbJ4hy5C7A

My analysis, part 2

David Bowie, Life On Mars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v--IqqusnNQ

My analysis, part 2

I've always loved "The Stars of Track and Field"--deceptively strange with the major VI chord and the minor v7. Keeps the key ambiguous.

Hey Bulldog does a similar trick in the same key (B), with the minor v7, especially since it resolves into the bVII in the second part of the verse (bVII, v, IV).

Any one have any favorite progressions from the past decade or so? Most of these examples are older.

I learned a lot of my favorite chord progression tricks that I still like to use today from one song, an instrumental from the Superfly soundtrack that I learned to play in high school:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAZ9zBLLuOc

I'm a big fan of the quick 2nd inversion c-triad -> g triad -> 1st inversion d triad. Also love the e minor into the g-triad over a. It's basically gospel stuff.

the chord progression on the chorus of Vampire Weekend's "Sympathy" has a fun use of tritones: Bm6/G# C#7 Am6/F# B7

should say, the melody uses tritone intervals over those chords

Maybe someone more knowledgeable than I can answer this one. There's a modulation that shows up in a bunch of deep soul songs that always moves me. It's here at :37 when Mavis hits the lyric "...will to try." What exactly are they doing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmWkKYcFhuo

hope I'm not out of my depth here but it sounds like on that particular chord they're raising the third to make a major chord rather than the minor chord that it's supposed to be within that key

I think Josefa is right. To me that sounds like a major III chord, which would normally be minor. Typically this would be followed by a vi or IV chord, but in this case it sounds like it is followed by the V chord and then goes back to I after that.

a typical example that I always think of of a major III chord being used in a song is the second chord in "Georgia On My Mind"

Yep. And Otis Redding uses a major III chord in "I've Been Loving You Too Long" also (he wrote "Good to Me").

I was looking at a chord chart for that one online. So it's in the key of A, goes between the A and E a bit, and then goes to a C#. So that would be the major III?

It seems like it's providing a preface or buildup to the D (IV) right? (I know just enough about this stuff to be dangerous...)

i think in this case it leads into the V, but i'd need a piano to be certain

I to Major III is a common move in the gospel playbook, lots of hymns start with this basic movement (also seen in georgia on my mind): I - III - vi - IV

"memories fade" by tears for fears, tonal center is e minor. i absolutely love the chorus progression.

b minor to b major(!) to c major to a minor

Just a side question: does anyone see chords as particular shapes or colors? Major-major7th chrods (like Cmaj7) always strike as very round and soft, and of a light shade, such as a pastel. Contrarily, major-minor7th chords (like C7) strike me as angular and harder, and a brighter color, such as red.

For the record, I generally don't hold too many biases with chords, and use them as I see fit (which basically means, I play what sounds good to me, or in rare cases, use them for particular effects) -- but I will say that I don't generally like major-major 7th chords. To me, they seem *too* passive. Debussy used them, and for that, I must grant them credence, for he somehow made them sound credible, but he also did wonders with flatted 7ths, and using 9ths, and making chords that sounded heavenly (and just a bit erotic).

― dleone, Monday, June 10, 2002 8:00 PM (twenty years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I find this really interesting because I also get soft pastel vibes from major 7ths, but rather than passivity I hear wistful beauty; they're my favorite kind of chord