Well, in a way, yes. But it all comes down to them understanding music and … here come the scary words: »music theory«. Most of our favorite musicians, who we mystically label as »gods« probably knew much more about music theory, than we might think.

Understanding some theory behind the chord progressions can help you a lot with:

• Seeing patterns inside the songs and therefore:
  • learning new songs by ear,
  • remembering them;
• transposing songs to fit the singer (or your singing),
• writing new music,
• coming up with creative guitar parts to play in a band,
• jamming with your friends.

With that in mind, let’s get into it.

Chords that go together

You might have noticed that some chords are quite frequently played together, while some don’t ever appear in the same song.

The chords that go together are very likely to be in the same key.

To understand keys, we first need to know that there are 7 notes in a major scale. A sequence you might have already heard is: C, D, E, F, G, A, B. These are the 7 notes of a C major scale.

On each of these notes, you can build either a major or a minor chord. And the sequence of the types of chords is the same for every key.

It goes like this: major, minor, minor, major, major, minor.

As you can see, we’ve left out the seventh chord, which is actually a diminished type of chord, but it’s very rarely used in modern music, so we will just stick to major and minor to keep things simpler.

So, in the key of C major the chords that go together should be: C, Dm, Em, F, G and Am.

You may have seen these chords in songs before. You may have also noticed, that not all the chords from one key are used in the same song. Most songs just use four chords, some use more, some use only two, etc.

If you want to expand the idea onto other keys, just keep in mind the sequence of the types of chords. Then you find the major scale and paste the sequence over it.

If you have a G major scale: G, A, B, C, D, E, F#,

and paste the sequence over it, you get the chords from G major: G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em.

You can find all notes from all major keys in this table:

KEY	1.	2.	3.	4.	5.	6.	7.
C major	C	D	E	F	G	A	B
G major	G	A	B	C	D	E	F#
D major	D	E	F#	G	A	B	C#
A major	A	B	C#	D	E	F#	G#
E major	E	F#	G#	A	B	C#	D#
B major	B	C#	D#	E	F#	G#	A#
F# major	F#	G#	A#	B	C#	D#	E#
F major	F	G	A	Bb	C	D	E
Bb major	Bb	C	D	Eb	F	G	A
Eb major	Eb	F	G	Ab	Bb	C	D
Ab major	Ab	Bb	C	Db	Eb	F	G
Db major	Db	Eb	F	Gb	Ab	Bb	C
Gb major	Gb	Ab	Bb	Cb	Db	Eb	F

Labeling the chords

So now that we know there are seven different chords in each key (or six that are mostly used in modern music), we can simply label them with numbers.

Chords are generally labeled with roman numeral, where capital letters resemble major chords and lowercase letters mean minor chords, like this:

I ii iii IV V vi

Now this is where the mystery of songwriting gets debunked. Most of the songs are written using a combination of these six chords. The most popular chord progression is:

I, V, vi, IV or in C major: C, G, Am, F.

And many songs use that same progression, even if it doesn’t appear so at first. If you take the song “Don’t stop believing” by Journey for example, it uses:

E, B, C#m, A,

It is exactly the same as “With or Without You” by U2, which uses:

D, A, Bm, G.

And that’s because both of these songs actually use: I, V, vi, IV. They are just in different keys.

To stop the boring theory portion of this short lesson, let’s see some chord progressions that will sound awesome on your guitar.

Chord progressions to use

ii V I vi (Dm, G, C, Am)

I IV vi V (C, F, Am, G)

vi IV I V (Am, F, C, G)

vi IV V V (Am, F, G, G)

I vi IV V (C, Am, F, G)

I vi ii V (C, Am, Dm, G)

I iii vi IV (C, Em, Am, F)

(your own examples next ;))

What to do with these chord progressions

Now that you know what goes together, you’ll start noticing these patterns in your favorite songs. And yes, there are songs that “break the rules” and go outside of these examples. But this is a great way to start understanding them.

You can now practice these progressions by playing the chords in time. The most basic exercise is to count each chord to 4, and strike it on the first beat. You can then add different strumming patterns, make each chord last longer or shorter, and all in all just be creative with it.

There are so many options, you could probably play around with one chord progression for at least a week. I will suggest not to actually do this, because it can become quite boring, but explore at least a few options before moving on to a new progression.

I hope this helps in your rhythm guitar playing and wish you good luck in your practice!

© Janez Janežič, 2024

About The Author

Janez Janežič is an aspiring guitar teacher from Novo mesto, Slovenia. With his guitar school Dream Music – Guitar School, he is helping his students become guitar players they always wanted to be.