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What I would call the "She's Electric" or "2nd Dominant Axis development", this development is really rather common across numerous designs of pop and rock.
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0:00 I – III – vi – IV.
1:02 Examples.
2:39 Variations.
3:40 Pianote.
4:20 Secondary Dominant.
7:32 Patreon.
Songs that use the I III vi IV chord progression
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Literally every single moody pop song uses that chord progression, every single Gayle song uses it, I’m surprised you didn’t include “ABCDEFU”. Also, how could you forget about the iconic “L’amour Toujours” by Gigi D’Agostino that set the culprint in Italodance and inspired songs like “Sexy Girl” by Brothers and to some extent “Batti Cuore” by Promiseland feat. Mantero to use that chord progression as well.
Exactly. A lot of really bad modern pop uses this progression which kind of sours me on it
My favorite moody pop song is When I See You by The Moog. Four chords, yes, but it gets me, still. Maybe due to nostalgia for the time when I first heard it.
I’ve got to say David I am addicted to your videos! Easily the best out there! Thanks ever so much for the incredible work and the straightforward way you present it. Many thanks, Warren
Thank you Warren! I love your videos too! 😀😀
Wow! What an honour!@@DavidBennettPianoCan I email you? Love what you’re doing
Thanks all.@@DavidBennettPiano
HNY Wazza! Rock ON in ’24! m/
The riff for ‘Lithium’ by Nirvana starts with this progression, although it’s mostly power chords.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Nirvana song used as an example in one of David’s videos. I feel like he might not like the band.
@@reginaldperiwinkleI think it rather has to do with the fact that, as said, it mostly is power chords. The point of interest of these videos is exploring chords that are not common, and this one as to do with the fact that this progression is non diatonic with the major I to major III. However, when using only power chords, you remove that point of interest by using only the tonic and the fifth.
@@thegreatnamehere5684 Exactly. A series of major/minor ambiguous power chords is not the same as the progression that’s being discussed. Also, I highly doubt David has particular enmity towards Nirvana. I don’t think he goes around saying “Curt Cobain is bollocks!”
@@thegreatnamehere5684 Nirvana songs are a lot more nuanced than they may appear. Often the power chords are fleshed out by note choices in the vocal melody. Rick Beato has done a video on In Bloom, I think, where he highlights chromaticism as the vocal plays the thirds. I’d love to see a breakdown of a Nirvana song on this channel – or early REM, as they are often quite unpredictable. Great work though! And happy new year to both the channel and it’s viewers…
This was very notable by it’s absense. David doesn’t seem to respect rock bands or guitar players in general, which is fine, I guess
Philip Glass uses a lot of chord progressions where, in close voicing with inversions, he shifts between chords by moving one or two notes in each triad a semitone (up or down, in similar or contrary motion) to the next.
“I III vi IV” reminds me of a progression he has used in a number of pieces (most notably the second movement of the ‘Tirol’ Piano Concerto and ‘Truman Sleeps’/’Setting the Sail’ from ‘The Truman Show’, as well as a couple of his Piano Etudes) but starting on “vi”, to go “vi VI I III”, which translates into minor as “i VI III V” (translating “vi” to “i”) so, instead of “C E a F” in C major, he uses “a F C E” in A minor (with voice leading: “ACE ACF GCE G# BE” – and moving the E down to D briefly to further bring us back to A minor with a transitional “g#°” (G# min dim)).
Great video as always. But how do you come up with so many songs? Do you listen systematically to hundreds of songs and write down the harmonic structure, do you just remember a huge lot of songs, do you have written sources,. How do you manage the sheer numbers? Anyway, your work is clever and useful and entertaining, bravo! 👏👏👏👏👏🏽👏🏽👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿
One interesting thing I noticed about the use of the IV-iv plagal sigh with this progression is that the chromatic note in iv is enharmonic to the one in III: in C, III (E major) contains a G♯, while iv (F minor) contains A♭. So there’s a nice consistency there, which may make it easier to come up with a melody (or when writing a melody in the I-III-vi-IV using that note, may make the IV-iv present itself). Of course, the IV-iv-I is a pretty common twist anyway, so maybe it doesn’t need that much explaining.
Could you analyze the album “A Charly Brown Christmas” and explain what makes it so great. Probably the best album I have in my collection.
“I’m so tired” by Fugazi is the music I have associated to this progression. Is played with a piano in the record and it’s great stuff.
The bridge of Silverstein – My Heroine (uses the I-V/vi-vi-V-IV variant) 😍
I feel like it pops up in bridges pretty often even when it’s not the main progression, either in the normal version or with the loop shifted back to start on the IV(-I-V7/vi-vi)
I was looking at the chord progression of Together by The Raconteurs earlier today and it was very close (by staying diatonic) : I iiim vim IV.
It’s very interesting to see how this small variation of the third degree change a lot on the feeling of this progression.
Thanks a lot for your videos, they’re really helpful and one of the best I watch on YouTube !
One song that comes to mind is ‘Good News’ by Mac Miller. It wraps the progression up interestingly as well
YESS! it was the first thing i thought of
I love this chord progression and it’s always been my favourite. It’s really versatile as you can really start on any chord and still have it sound powerful. Marketland by Lemon Demon starts on the III and Drink by Destroy Boys starts on the IV.
“Jukebox” by Jason also uses this progression. I remember loving that track but not really knowing what it was that was amazing. It’s only in the past year or so I’ve been very interested in harmony and started investigating things like that.
I absolutely love these videos! I know a modest amount of music theory, but building chord progressions is something I still struggle with. Theses breakdown videos really help me to understand these changes and how they function. Thank you David!!
Thanks for making this. I’ve heard this progression in many pop songs, but I’m not a music theorist so I could never place what it was.
All you need is love at the chorus, on the third part of the chorus has a I III7 vi V IV V I which is relatively similar, this 1 to 3 major (especially major 7th) is an element in chord progressions that people find very pleasing, and with good reason as it sounds amazing
I think I know a bit about music theory but I always learn something from your videos. The III being the V of vi is something that never would have occurred to me. You are an excellent teacher David so keep up the good work. Thanks.
I used to call this chord progression the pop-punk progression. If you play it on an electric guitar, with power chords, you get the feeling that you played all the existing pop-punk songs at one moment
After 68 years on this planet, I finally learned what a chord progression is from you. I know nothing about music, yet listening to it has been the love of my life, but there is a chord progression I’ve heard in some songs that I desperately want to learn about. It melts my heart every time I hear it. John Mayer uses it in his song I guess I just fee like, and it happens 7 to 8 seconds into the guitar solo. It feels like it plunges you into the depths of sorrow, but then the following chords gradually pull you back up from there.
I’m pretty sure the chord progression in that song is mostly just a I-IV most of the time with a vi thrown in there every now and then in the verses. As far as I can tell, the chords for the solo are that same I-IV vamp, but the shift in tone and mood are due mostly to John Mayer’s lead guitar work. He uses tonicization and modal mixture (very common in blues guitar, especially his brand of blues guitar) which puts those same “boring” chords in a brand new and different context.
More specifically, he uses the b3 and b6 degrees of the scale, which are very common in blues and hint at modulation from ionian mode to dorian or aeolian, or just a general minor modal center
@@FaustinaFalcon8 Thanks. 🙂
When I heard the progression the first song that came to mind was “All my favourite songs” and I couldn’t believe when he played it!
I think this is the first time I’ve recognised a song from its chord progression alone