Chord progressions

To avoid dissonance when moving from one chord to the next, stay inside the same key. Every major key has seven chords of its own: three major, three minor and one diminished. These are its neighbour chords, and most popular music moves among them.

The table gives the seven chords of all twelve major keys. Every chord is a link — you can hear it and see it on the keyboard.

Roman numerals mark each chord’s function inside the key. Uppercase means major (I, IV, V), lowercase means minor (ii, iii, vi), and the small circle marks the diminished chord (vii°).

Writing a progression in degrees instead of concrete chords lets you move it to any key: I–vi–IV–V is the same musical idea in C as it is in E♭. Here are a few common progressions in C major:

Pick a progression and hear it played by the studio piano. The keyboard lights each note as it sounds, and you can loop the sequence or play any step on its own.

Transposing means keeping the relationships between the chords and moving the starting point. If the progression is I–vi–ii–V, find the row for the new key in the table and read the same columns: the degrees do not change, only the chords filling them.

This is the practical reason to think in degrees: a song can be moved up or down to suit a singer without relearning the harmony.

In jazz the ii–V–I progression is almost a language of its own, and it is played with seventh chords rather than triads: Dm7 – G7 – Cmaj7. Swapping those chords for extended versions is where the style’s colour comes from.

In blues, the standard form is twelve bars built on degrees I, IV and V, nearly always with dominant sevenths: C7, F7 and G7. Most of the repertoire sits on that frame.

To go further with those replacements, see chord substitutions. To make the changes comfortable under the hand, see finger movements.