Chord Progression
Rhythm Changes Turnaround
Imaj7 – vi7 – ii7 – V7
The turnaround at the heart of "I Got Rhythm" and a thousand jazz tunes.
Key
The chords in C Major
4 shapes to learn — tap any diagram to hear it on guitar or piano.
How it works
A four-chord turnaround that walks around the key by descending fourths and lands on the V, primed to loop back to the I. It is the first four bars of "rhythm changes" — the chord form of Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" that became the second most-recorded structure in jazz after the blues.
Every chord is a seventh, and each root is a fourth above the last, giving that smooth, circular jazz motion. Swap the vi7 for a VI7 and you brighten it into a stronger secondary-dominant pull.
It is the ii–V–I with a running start: the vi and the tonic 7th at the front stretch a three-chord cadence into a satisfying, self-renewing loop.
Songs built on it
A few well-known examples — every one of them the same chords, moving in the same order.
- I Got Rhythm— George Gershwin
- Oleo— Sonny Rollins
- Anthropology— Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie
Imaj7 – vi7 – ii7 – V7 in every key
The same numerals, twelve different sets of letters. Tap a key to explore all its chords.