31: Chord Progressions
What is a Chord Progression?.
A chord progression is a pattern of movement from one chord to
another.
Any piece of music has a chord progression. And even if it’s a melody
without chords at all, there is still a chord progression implied by that
melody.
Chord progressions are often very simple, involving only a few chords,
but they can also be quite complex. The chord progressions we’ll be
going over will be of the simple variety.
Chord progressions, especially the ones we’ll be looking at, are repeated
often many times throughout a piece of music. All of the progressions
we’ll be going over, with the exception of the 12 Bar Blues, can be found
most often at the end of sections or songs.Chord Progression General Guidelines
Voice Leading
Remember all those pesky details about chord inversions you learned in
Chapter 30? Well, now you get to put that information to work, because
inversions can make chord progressions sound more smooth.
Voice leading is how one chord tone (or voice) moves to another. There
are certain general rules which, if you follow them, will give you a clean,
clear chord progression. These aren’t laws, but general guidelines. Feel
free to experiment with them.Doubling
Chord tones may be doubled without affecting the general quality of
the chord. Voices which are usually doubled are tonics and fifths.
Thirds are doubled less often, and extensions are rarely doubled. For
our examples, I’ll keep doubling to a minimum.