4 Useful Chord Progressions You Should Know

And, an extra special thanks goes to Peter Keller, Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇

0:00 Introduction
0:28 "Kiss From A Rose" progression
3:05 "Isn't She Lovely" progression
6:12 Hook Theory
6:55 "What's Up?" progression
9:25 "Marvin Gaye" progression

[origineo]

"Isn't she lovely?" chord progression always makes me CRAVE to listen to the chromatic descending melody, well accentuated, throughout the harmony.
I actually really love these 'semitone effects' in every chord progression.

[AlystrZelland]

You do such a good job of speaking in detail without being either condescending or presumptuous in your explanations. It does wonders in including every level of audience member and learner

[FrankPisaniMusic]

I was actually just wondering how you find so many examples of these chord progressions! Seems like a useful tool! I especially like the Super Mario cadence. Very triumphant and uplifting 👍

[seejoshrun]

The "Kiss from a Rose" cadence has a much different association for me. I associate with a dramatic build to the end of a song. Specifically, I've heard it from the end of various Disney movies and marching band shows. Very triumphant. Crazy how different it can sound depending on the context.

Edit: I didn't watch long enough before I made this comment - the connection to mario is exactly the same idea.

[vib]

The last few years has seen a rise in the use of the "Just the Two of Us" chord progression in jpop. Sometimes called the Shiina Ringo progression there because she was using it over 20 years ago, and it's likely that's where many current artists picked it up. I see Hook Theory labels the chords for it based on it being in Fminor, but the Japanese music theory channel I follow typically does it in the relative major (IVΔ7-III7-vi7-v7-I7). As expected, Hook Theory is talking about one song with a fixed mode, but when talking about many, they could be in any mode.

[blandoon]

One major error: "Isn't She Lovely" is not in the key of E major... it is in the key of LIFE

[smoorej]

Absolutely brilliant. The clarity of your explanations still amazes me. The way you organize the topics, your examples, the time spent on each subtopic, totally spot on. You are a natural teacher.

[thecopster]

The bvi, bvii I chord sequence is amazing. Some other cool examples are Dire Dire Docks from Super Mario 64, and part of Z's theme from Antz.

[sethd.]

the first chord progression is also used a lot in the soundtrack for the video game series Touhou. it's one of the creator's favorite chord progressions.

[andrepessoa]

I'm from Brazil, David! I love your explanations and dedication to talk about music theory in different levels of understanding.

[bimbettocavallo]

The bVI-bVII-I progression is often used by Elton John when he comes out of a chorus. Check Burn Down The Mission and Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me as a couple of examples

[bleistift]

Thank you for including the live piano preview. As as amateur I always found it hard to visualize which notes are actually getting played when you only showed the chords themselves on screen in previous videos. This makes it much easier for me to follow you, as well as the emergent line cliches that happen during the chord progressions.

On the same note, transposing everything into C helps a great deal, too. It relieves me of the burden of guessing if a black key is just a ‘regular’ one in the current key, or added flavor.

[waugsqueke]

The first progression is used in I Am The Walrus as well, both forwards and backwards.

[Winner]

Some friends and I Did a barbershop arrangement of Isn't She Lovely this year. The harmonies were just so fun!

[maps]

The iii chord is soooo underused, it’s one of my favorite chords to use because it sounds amazing using both major and minor versions of it while in a major key.

[Bebe-rnfh]

I’ve always noticed that isnt she lovely progression and thought it always sounds wonderful. But I wasn’t musically knowledgeable enough to figure out what the chord progression was and what was so incredible about it. Thank you!

[tommyfeinstoff]

More videos on chord progressions for certain moods please. All of them. Also dark etc would be nice.

[GizzyDillespee]

Brian Wilson sound like Mama Cass, when he's pitch shifted!
Thanks for the vid, these ones are always fun

[acialist]

from someone who just took a music copyright class last semester, let me just say here for everybody, you can't copyright a chord progression.
The two things musically you can copyright are lyrics and melody.
The third is the sound recording itself.
outside of that, anything concerning vibe, taste, feel, mood, are all things that are non copyrightable.

[yepaxle]

Another day, another great David Bennett Piano video to watch and learn something new!