10

Chord Progressions

In This Chapter

◆Understanding scale-based chords

◆Learning the rules of chord leading

◆Figuring out how to end a progression

◆Discovering the most common chord progressions

◆Fitting chords to a melody—and a melody to a chord progression

In Chapter 9, you learned how to group notes together to form chords. Individual
chords alone are interesting, but they become really useful when you string them
together to form a succession of chords—what we call a chord progression.These
chord progressions provide the harmonic underpinning of a song, “fattening
out” the melody and propelling the music forward.

Of course, to create a chord progression that sounds natural, you can’t just
string a bunch of chords together willy-nilly. Certain chords naturally lead to
other chords; certain chords perform distinct functions within a song. You have
to use your chords properly, and arrange them in the right order, to create a
piece of music that sounds both natural and logical.

Chord progressions don’t have to be complex, either. The simplest progressions
include just two or three chords—which are easy enough for any beginning gui-
tarist to play. How many songs, after all, do you know that use only the G, C,
and D chords? (A lot, I bet.) Those three chords comprise one of the most
common chord progressions—which should show you how easy all this is.

Chords for Each Note in the Scale

To better understand the theory behind chord progressions, you need to under-
stand that you can create a three-note chord based on any of the seven notes of
a major key or scale. You start with the note of the scale (one through seven) as
the root of the chord; then build up from there in thirds—using only the notes
within the scale.

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