Discovered a song for progression 4: 1-6-4-5 (C-Am-F-G). “It’s Raining on Prom Night” from the Grease (movie) Soundtrack.
I’m so happy to see this lesson. The truth is, I’m not really into most of the recommended practice songs up to this point (with a few exceptions like “Good Riddance” and “Californication”), so I’ve not been playing most them. Instead, what I did was to simply practice the chord progressions in the songs, sometimes with the song-specific strumming pattern if it’s interesting, without the song. I thought the chord progressions sounded musical enough on their own. Good to know that my efforts were not way off the mark.
6-4-1-5 is heading south by Zach Bryan!
I’m sure I heard “The first cut is the deepest” in there somewhere.
I realise this is from a while ago, Richard, and I might be missing the obvious, but what key would you say that progression is in?
Hi Brian,
Justin first 25 sec of the video in the key of C major…
But you probably already saw that…so this might not help
Edit:And after 8 minutes Justin plays this and now I’m curious about your question …
Or do you ask for calling it that other key and make it unnecessarily complicated?
(Ooo why did I bother with this sorry )
Very nice to see this old video again … the first time 4 years ago I gave up a limb to play a chord progression like that and so neatly too
Greetings
@brianlarsen , it’s explicit in what @Richard_close2u wrote:
It is a 2, 5, 1, 6 = Dm, G, C, Am
Dm is the 2 chord
G is the 5
C is the 1
Am is the 6
Since C is the 1 chord, it’s in the key of C. Or did I misunderstand your q?
Sorry guys, I had a bit of a ‘brain-freeze’
I never watched the video, but had my guitar at hand and just played the progression a couple of times. It sounded nice, but I thought that A min sounded like ‘home’, which would have meant it was a minor key and the numbering system would have to be changed to reflect that. I think I’m back on board…
You really should start with that…
They’re all just videos of that Justin guy from the Christmas open mic, he’s a pretty good teacher
Oh well, I’m laughing now…
Greetings
Brian - in the lesson, Justin states:
So everything in the Learn more, including the chord numbering, is based on C being the Tonic 1 chord.
I know you like to view things through the minor lens … if we stripped away Justin’s context and had this as a four chord progression up for analysis, we would be drawing tenuous conclusions due to the ambiguous nature that comes from having no other context.
If not the key of C …
It could be the key of A minor and all chords are diatonic.
It could be the key of D minor and the G major is a borrowed chord (G minor is the diatonic chord in that key).
It could be the key of D Dorian and all chords are diatonic.
It could be the key of G major with a borrowed Dm chord too.
Hehe, very generous and thoughtful of you, Sensei, to try and throw me a lifeline…
Two things, however, have contributed to my enlightenment in this question- (apart from my fellow forumites of course )
- My son walked into the room after I typed my question, I played him the progression and asked what key; he responded C. (I didn’t quite follow/accept his explanation, although he was sure)
- I went back and played it a couple more times, singing along to the progression and realised that when I finished up on what I believed was the ‘home chord’ A min, I was singing the note C. At least my ears knew if my head didn’t
You are also quite correct that this all came out of wearing my ‘little’ goggles. Although I love the Cof5, it’s always been unsatisfactory to me that minor key degrees use a differing numbering system to the major ones. I’d be much happier calling the A in A min the vi rather than the i and so forth.
Ah well, back to the drawing board…
That’s perfectly legit … C is a chord tone of A minor … a crucial one as it is the minor 3rd of the chord.
I know, but I believe I was looking for the tonic
Were you sitting, singing with a glass of G and no T?
If you were inspired by this, I would recommend looking up “David Bennett piano chord progressions” on You_Tube. In a number of different posts, he takes a set of chords, using the symbols that Justin and @stitch have outlined and shows how they have been used by different artists. Very illuminating.
@brianlarsen - I need to pay you back for the help you gave me - I’ll come round and tell you about the relationship of the key C to that of Am and why they sound the same.
Have a cup of coffee
Are you going to the OM tomorrow?
Yep ! I’ll be backing SaraMay and perhaps doing one or two numbers myself - depends upon the turnout. If there’s lots of performers, I’ll take a back seat.
I’ll also probably be at the "Afternoon Acoustic: sing around, from 2:00pm - again. at the Arts Centre. (sit around off-stage and some people off-mic as well) and go round clockwise, one at a time (anticlockwise is “widdershins” and you should know what that implies !)
1 5 6 4 is Wagon Wheel
At 5:15, Justin adds a few colorful notes to the chord progression 2 that sound amazing. It looks similar when switching between a D major to D sus4 by just adding/removing the 4th finger.
I’m probably asking for a bigger bite than I can chew, but is anyone able to provide the notes for each chord that he is adding to try this?
He’s playing a C major chord and lifts off his first finger. The open B string makes it a C major 7 chord.