Chord progressions – what do they mean and how do they work?
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Chord progressions are a series of chords (which are groups of notes played together) that are played in a specific order to create the harmony of a song. Think of it like a sequence of Lego blocks that, when put together in the right way, form the structure of the song’s music.
Music theory is like math or physics. You don’t necessarily need to understand Bernoulli’s Principle or F = GMm/r^2 to make a paper airplane, but that math is still there to describe what is going on regardless and your airplanes gonna still fly.
Chord progressions are kind of like that. You don’t need to know Roman Numerical Analysis to play some music, but the math is still there to describe it if you want.
There’s an infinite amount of ways that you can string chords together; some of them sound subjectively “better” or “more mathematically simple.” Truly, though, there are no wrong answers; it’s simply words we use to mathematically describe what is happening.
That’s really all of theory– the term “chord” just refers to any 2 or more notes played at the same time, and “chord progression” just refers to any 2 or more chords played in succession.
So if you see something that says a C major triad going into a G dominant chord is an Inperfect Cadence and can be represented as a I V chord progression, just know all of those words are the math behind the music
However, if you’re looking for explanations of why certain chord progressions sound more subjectively “corect” or what roman numerals are for– such as a I IV V or a blues progressions, that’s something that requires a fairly complicated description… Not hard to learn, but maybe a bit much for this sub!
Look at a piano.
The keys are grouped into 2 black keys, 3 black keys with white keys in between for a total of eight white keys (natural notes) and 5 black keys (accidental notes) before the series repeats.
Pick a series. on the 2 black keys, play the white key immediately to the left of the left key.
That is C. It is note 1.
The next white key is D. It is note 2.
The next white key is E. It is note 3.
The next white key is F. It is note 4.
The next white key is G. It is note 5.
The next white key is A. It is note 6.
The next white key is B. It is note 7.
The next white key is C. You’re back where you started – and you’ll notice the notes are the same – they just sound higher.
Now, pick any three keys and play them together.
When you get to experiment with it, you’ll notice some sound better and some sound worse.
Maybe you play 1-3-5, then 1-4-6, then 1-5-7, 1-3-6. Congratulations! You just played a chord progression. Chord progressions help the music flow – and if you change them in the right way it can make the music flow really well and sound interesting. It can also support somebody playing an instrument to or singing a melody.
What’s cool about music is getting to explore the different chord progressions. Add a fourth note or a fifth note to your chords. Start at a different place on the keyboard, which changes the key of your piece. Add in black keys, which add in between notes called flats or sharps.
Any instrument that can play multiple notes at a time can play chords. Guitar, piano, and to a limited degree, certain percussion and string instruments.
A lot of learning and playing music is about communication of intent between musicians. (not the same as performing for the audience).
Because of this, musicians have to develop methods to quickly convey to other musicians what to play, when to play, how loud… So we end up with music notation. So with music notation, and because many musical patterns are very commonly used throughout music, we end up with “shorthand” or quick ways to name and communicate musical stuff.
One very common shorthand are chords. So rather than saying play note C, E and G, I could say play Cmajor (chord) and musicians know this means notes C,E,G. Within a song, there tends to be a common scheme of chords that “work well” for most melodies. For example pop songs in C major scale usually have Cmaj, Gmaj, Amin, Fmaj chords played sequentially. This is a chord progression. Another shorthand way to say this is C major scale, play the 1, 5, 6, 4 chord progression since G is the 5th note, A is the 6th note and F is the 4th note in the C major scale.
A lot of popular and classical music uses a common scale pattern so these chord progressions are just an easy way to communicate what to play very quickly (which is especially useful for piano and guitar because these instruments can play multiple notes at the same time and writing down each note can be hard to read)
There is a lot of theory behind why some progressions work and why they invoke a certain feeling or movement to the music but that would be way beyond ELI5. Bottom line: chords and chord progressions are shortcuts for quick communication between musicians.
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