{"id":28880,"date":"2024-02-27T18:44:31","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T23:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/?p=28880"},"modified":"2025-03-04T15:39:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T20:39:28","slug":"identifying-standard-pop-chord-progressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/2024\/identifying-standard-pop-chord-progressions\/","title":{"rendered":"Identifying standard pop chord progressions"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week in aural skills, we are practicing identifying pop schemas<\/a>, that is, chord sequences and loops that occur commonly in various kinds of Anglo-American top 40, rock, R&B and related styles. We previously covered the permutations of I, IV and V<\/a> and\u00a0the plagal cadence<\/a>. Now we’re getting into progressions that bring in the rest of the diatonic family, that is, the chords you can make using the notes in the major and natural minor scales.<\/p>\n

Singer-Songwriter\/Axis progression<\/h3>\n

A huge percentage of current mainstream pop and rock songs are built on the four-legged stool of the I, IV, V and vi chords. In C, those are C, F, G, and Am. You can find these chords in any order, but there’s a particularly inescapable sequence that my NYU colleagues call the singer-songwriter progression: I, V, vi, IV, which in C is C, G, Am, F.<\/p>\n

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The other widely used name for this chord sequence is the Axis progression, after the Axis of Awesome video.<\/p>\n