Chord Progression
The Three-Chord Song
I – IV – V
The three chords at the root of Western popular music — every key defined in one gesture.
Key
The chords in C Major
3 shapes to learn — tap any diagram to hear it on guitar or piano.
How it works
These are the three major chords in any major key: the tonic (I), the subdominant (IV) and the dominant (V). Between them they contain all seven notes of the scale, so they alone can harmonise almost any melody in the key.
The V chord is the engine. It holds the leading tone — the note a semitone below the tonic — which strains upward and makes the return to I feel inevitable. IV softens the journey out; V snaps it home.
Learn these three shapes in a key and you can already play thousands of folk, blues, country and rock songs. Add a flattened 7th to each and you have the raw material of the 12-bar blues.
Songs built on it
A few well-known examples — every one of them the same chords, moving in the same order.
- Twist and Shout— The Beatles
- La Bamba— Ritchie Valens
- Wild Thing— The Troggs
- Blitzkrieg Bop— Ramones
I – IV – V in every key
The same numerals, twelve different sets of letters. Tap a key to explore all its chords.