 Hi everyone, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. So as the trend goes on YouTube, all channels tend to talk about something on the popular set of chord progressions or at least the most famous popular chord progression of them all. Apparently the 1564 or any permutation of the 1564. So I thought I'll do a lesson as well covering not only the standard 1564 chord progressions but also a lot of others. In fact, to my knowledge, there are 15 super popular chord progressions which you would have heard in a lot of songs. So that's what we are going to do and that's what we are going to dive into. And again, I followed a few YouTubers trying to cover this topic. And the first thing I learned is it's not that exhaustive. I thought we'll do as many as we can. And also everyone seemed to talk about it on the key of C. And as some of you know, who've subscribed to our channel, I'm not a huge fan of the C scale or the C chord or the C anything. So let's move on with some other chord. Why don't we take F for today's lesson? So I'm going to take F, the key of F and whether it's F major or F minor, let's see. But it's always good to try your work on other scales, not just the keys which you're familiar with, especially music theory concepts. If you have to learn intervals or chord progressions or any theory, it's always easier for some reason on the keys like C. But I think the reason is because C is advertised a lot more. And I was just kidding when I said I don't like C. There's nothing wrong about any key. It's just that I'm trying to encourage you, at least on this channel, to use things other than C to improve your chops and try to get a lot more efficient on this. What you see is what you get kind of an instrument. There are no patterns. So if you have to play a tricky chord, you have to learn it and all chords, all scales should be equally playable by you as you keep practicing. So let's get cracking with what I consider as very popular chord progressions. And I'm sure you do as well. So the first one, if we take the key of F would be one, six, four, five. So on the key of F, we have the chords written down for you. It's also available as a Patreon download. So do consider getting yourselves a copy. So you have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven octave F major scale, having one flat, namely B flat F, E, D, C, B flat, A, G, F. OK, so when you say one, six, four, five, that's going to be F, D minor, B flat major, C major. So it's kind of an assortment of one, five, six, four. But this ordering is interesting. So one, six, four, five. A nice way to play it is that bouncy, marching rhythm. Um-pa, um-pa, um-pa, um-pa, um-pa, um-pa, um-pa, um-pa, um-pa, um-pa. Instead of the four, you could also replace it with the two minor, which in this case is G minor. They both serve the same predominant function. OK, F, D minor, B flat, C or F, D minor, G minor, C. Da-da, da. I hope I'm not singing a very famous song which you already know, and ruining it, or maybe this video also could get taken down, who knows? But anyway, you see it's a very, very popular progression. It's a very old school like 50s progression. We also call it Do-up. Like doop-a-pa-doop-a-doop-a-doop Very acapella-ish, you'll hear a lot of these songs in the old-school music compositions. Okay, moving on. Another great chord progression for ballads would be the 1, 5 and then the 2 minor which is G minor. And then you could end on a 4 major or a 6 minor. So that's 1, 5, 2, 6, or 1, 5, 2, great chorus progression. You could play the chords longer like what I did now or you can even change it every 2 counts, every 2 beats or every minimum beat. So that'll be, okay, that's very rock ballad, pop ballad. You'll find it a lot in the glam rock era of the 80s. Another thing I like to do with this existing pop progression what everyone calls as the progression to make hit songs. But as you'll find out by this video end, hopefully there are other ways to make hit songs too, 15 other ways. So if you do the traditional 1, 5, 6, 4, very familiar. You can flip this around, just imagine that all the chords in that 1, 5, 6, 4 are not in a line, they are in a circle. So it forms a cyclic progression. In other words, you can start anywhere. You can do 1, 5, 6, 4, you can do 5, 6, 4, 1, you can do 6, 4, 1, 5, which is also super popular. Right. 6. So 6, 4, 1, 5, 1, 5, 6, 4, we hear a lot but Mr. Ed Sheeran has done something very interesting or either he did it or maybe a lot of people did it before him and you can let me know in the comments who did this progression before Ed Sheeran. But at least I know him to have sort of popularized this one a lot. You flip it but you start from the 4. So you do the 4 of F major, again we are in the key of F, not C. So don't get confused, F, G, A, B-flat is the 4. So B-flat and then the 1 and then the 5 and the 6. So. You can see I am getting a bit carried away there but anyway. So that's flipping the pop style and you get yourself a 4, 1, 5, 6 progression. Okay. Another thing which is very common in jazz songs is the whole 2, 5, 1 cadence. So you could just make a song which is just 2, 5, 1. So you get what's a 2, 5, 1 of F, G minor, 5 is C and then you have your F, 1. So one way to play it is 2, 5, 1 and wait a little longer for the 1. Okay. The other thing is you could do another chord after the 1 that's 2, 5, 1, 6 and do a 6 major which is quite interesting. That's also called a secondary dominant. So that'll be 2, 5 and 1, that's a 6 major which is a 5 of the 2, 5, 1, there we have your jazz major. So all these progressions were more on the major scale. Now if we assume the key of F to be not major but minor or some other keys as we're going to find out soon, we get a lot more interesting results and a lot of popular results as well. So let's now move into the other scales. Let's leave the world of major and move into minor. So the first one I have for you is again, ballad like but you make music on the minor key. So we are on F, let's first quickly revise our intervals of F, F, G major 2nd, A flat, flat 3, B flat it's normal 4, perfect 4, not a flat 4, it is a flat but not a flat 4. Perfect 4, C is the perfect 5, D flat perfect 6, why am I saying perfect 6, minor 6, then you have E flat which is the minor 7th, that's our natural minor for you, okay. So the progression goes 1, 7 flat, 5 minor because the 5 in a minor scale forms a minor chord at least in the natural minor scale in the harmonic minor it's 5 major. F minor, E flat, 7 flat major, 5 minor, 6 flat major we call it 6 flat major and it's a 6 flat with respect to F, there we go, let's do that again, lot of minor ballads could be made like this, okay. Now what if we take the same minor and try to make some more modern 2022 dance style music and strangely or ironically a lot of dance music is on the minor scale it's not really on the major scale which is our standard textbook scale which we start off, so if you take standard dance or EDM style music you may find a progression like this, what am I doing there, that's your 6th flat, 7th flat major, back to your tonic 1 minor because we are on the minor key, then you can go to your 5th minor or I have a brave chord as well which a lot of these artists do, there we go, that's actually a 3 flat major with a different bass, so I'll tell you the chords that's D flat, E flat, F minor, A flat over C, D flat, E flat, F minor, you can see a lot of the chain smokers and Coldplay songs, just follow this, so that last chord is also an optional chord, you can do it, sometimes you can even avoid it like, just stay on the 1 minor for a bit longer but if you want some fun, it's a braver suggestion to do the 3 flat major, A flat with a C bass, so that's an inversion of the 3 flat, let's do that again, you can even end the song on the 1 major and like have a nice uplifting ending, so quite familiar, maybe we should call this like the chain smokers chord progression or something with a nice drop here and there, so another chord progression I think is really popular because the band is really popular and no one speaks about this progression, but at least I haven't found a lot of videos on this progression which this great band Daft Punk uses and they've used it in so many of their songs, so I call it the Daft Punk or the Get Lucky chord progression, so if you take the key of F, the progression is 2 minor, 4 major, then you do the 6 minor, 5 major, so you see how interesting it is, you're never playing the 1 major, you're playing 2 minor, 4 major, D minor, 6, okay, that's like your Daft Punk or Get Lucky chord progression, right, so another very commonly used chord progression, very popular one would be this one, I'll play it for you and then break it down, you may have heard this song, so it's a jumble of the 1, 5, 6, 4, it goes something like 6 and 5, 4 major, we're on the key of F major, so 6 minor, 1 major, 5 major, Bb or the 4, call this like the counting stars progression or something, but other bands have used this, another jumble like how Ed Sheeran didn't jumble it, he cycled it, so he started on the 4 but what the song counting stars has clearly done is they've just jumbled the 1, 5, 6, 4, so that's another very nice thing you can try and do, right, so the next chord progression I have for you is the rock chord progression and I call it the Dorian rock progression because it's on the Dorian scale and it just sounds rock, right, so if I played for you on the key of F, so first of all F Dorian, it's a minor scale with a raised sixth or it's a major scale with a flat three and a flat seven, so minor would have been, that's Aeolian or natural minor, that's a Dorian, so Dorian progression could now be, right, so let's build the Dorian rock progression on the key of F, it's one minor, that's three flat major, that's your seven flat major, that's your four major, so that's one, three flat, seven flat, okay, four major, if you have a doubt about Roman numerals, I've done a video exclusively on Roman numerals, we'll link it in the description, check that out, so it's a great progression for rock songs, you must have already heard a lot of songs like, okay, even I've composed a song on this, it's called Redemption, do enjoy it in the description, let me know what you think, okay, Dorian rock and then I've done an exhaustive series on this, so I won't spend a lot of time, it's what we call as the Andalusian Cadence, so nice name actually, so if you take it on the key of F, you have your one minor, seven flat major, six flat major and then the five major, so it's sort of combining between the harmonic minor and the natural minor, borrows chords from both scales, Andalusian is very popular, very flamenco as well, Andalusian, do check out our list of Andalusian Cadence based lessons, we've put a playlist just for that, okay, I did talk about the jazz major progression, two five one, you could also make it so easily into a jazz minor progression, so that would be the two again, but in the minor key, the two will always be a half diminished chord, so that will be a G minor seventh flat five, going to C, which is the dominant seventh, and that results to the F minor, which is the tonic minor, so let me play it without talking, that's two five one on the key of F, it just demands you to sing something, that's G half diminished, see you could even do a seven flat nine, that would also work, can also use this inside any existing song and kind of reharmonize it as well, that'll be fun, okay, that's the jazz minor and the next chord progression I have for you is again in the rock space, I call this more as the Mixolydian cadence, I've done a lot of other videos on the Mixolydian scale, you can look it up, but the Mixolydian assumes that it's a major scale with a flat seven, so not the normal seven, it's the flat seven, so the progression is nothing but seven flat, four major and one major, all the major chords of the Mixolydian scale, which is seven flat, four major and one, but also sing the blues scale if you're composing a melody on this, kind of works, that's your Mixolydian cadence, okay, so I'm pretty much, I'm almost done with the lesson but there are just these three chord progressions which amaze me in the sense that they are so long and they've yet created so many timeless classics, so I'd like to just end my series with three, what I call as long chord progressions for want of a better word, the first one needs absolutely no introduction, it's called the 12 bar blues, I've done a lot of blues videos, theory and piano lessons, so do check them out for further details, so on the key of F, your blues progression will be built out of the one, the four, the five, the four, pretty much the one, the four and the five and all of those chords could be played as dominant seventh chords to give you that more bluesy vibe and it follows and a 12 bar structure because of the lyric writing, because of the verse of the blues songwriting model which is A, A, B, so if you write a sentence like I'm tore down almost level with the ground, you tend to repeat that again with the A and then you conclude at the B to say something like well I feel like this when my baby can't be found or some such thing, so you go that was the one chord and then the four chord B flat one back to one two five five find a lot of songs use this progression without even calling it blues but actually Michael Jackson's black or white pretty much uses this progression, a lot of popular songs actually use the blues progression and blues songs also use it and blues is arguably the most famous genre we have currently in music, it's also evolved and inspired a lot, a ton of genres which we have today, so we have to definitely thank the blues for making us who we are as musicians, so the blues progression is an iconic 12 bar phrase, do check it out, we've put the notes for you in our Patreon, you can find it there, that's your one major four, second time, third time, fourth time and then the four chord comes in for two bars but hadn't they do but back to one, then repeat the one and then the five and then the four four then you build riffs, you build different melodies and all of that around the structure, great another great chord progression, the second last one I have for you is what we call as the Canon chord progression or the Pachelbel's Canon chord progression, so it goes like this one five six three four one two off four five and then there are some artists who I forget the name otherwise I may have named them who just take this progression, take the tune which came from the past to classical song, no copyright issues and just happily use it and make a ton of money, so that's for another video I guess, but anyway so the Pachelbel Canon chord progression, you should learn the song Pachelbel Canon, it's a great song and the Canon chord progression follows around the circle of fifths, it's very easy it's a very cyclic chord progression and that's what it makes, that's what makes it last so long because it goes around the entire cycle, okay guys, so the last thing I'd like to cover is a chord progression which is super easy to form and you can build, you can even arrange songs or rearrange songs using this technique, it's where you kind of start with one chord be it major or minor and decide to go chromatically down or decide to go chromatically up or not even chromatically just go stepwise up or stepwise down, you'll see what I mean, so if you take the key of F minor what did I do there, I can even do this progression starting on just keeping one chord in the right hand let's say F minor, you can even climb, okay so this is a very deep concept, it involves the use of what we call as secondary dominant chords, I've done an entire series on secondary dominance where we've actually done this climb, we go all the way up and all the way down so more on that in that lesson and more lessons will be coming up on chord progression so I just thought I'll roll this in, it's what we call as a line cliche where you go down pretty much on the scale or off the scale also works and you just find a way to harmonize as your bass goes as down as possible, as you can see I'm just playing F minor in the right hand so that's another nice very popular way of composing long chord progression so let's just have a quick recap in this lesson we've looked at 15 or maybe more I'm not sure 15 very very popular chord progressions beyond the traditional 1564 we've looked at flipping it around jumbling the 1564 numbers I have to admit those chord degrees are very very great very very pleasant sounding but you don't have to always use them that order so we've done a lot of progressions where we've interchanged the order then we've done a lot of minor progressions like the Andalusian cadence the jazz 251 and we've done a lot of rock progressions modal ones like Dorian mixolydian then long ones like the timeless blues progression the canon and the line cliche descending movements right guys so hope you found the lesson useful if you did please consider giving the channel a subscribe hit the bell icon for regular notifications and our notes on patreon would help you supplement this lesson and all the other lessons which have been done and will be done in the future along with the notes you'll also have midi files backing tracks notation wherever need be and so on if you'd like something more traditional and more structured you can always consider going to Nathaniel school dot com and considering a music method semester program which will give you a very structured way of learning this curriculum there are also a video courses where I have thoughtfully put these lessons in a in a serial order for you to learn along with notes and a lot of other things right guys thanks a ton for watching this video till the very end me your support means a lot do leave us your thoughts in the comments what you thought about this lesson and if you'd like to if you'd like a particular topic which you'd like me to cover in a future video cheers this is Jason