Chord Progression
The Sensitive Progression
vi – IV – I – V
The four-chord loop started on the minor chord — instant emotional weight.
Key
The chords in C Major
4 shapes to learn — tap any diagram to hear it on guitar or piano.
How it works
These are the same four chords as the four-chord song, simply rotated to begin on the vi. That one change of starting point transforms the feel: opening on the minor chord makes the whole loop read as heartfelt, yearning, a little melancholy.
Because the tonic I now arrives third rather than first, the progression spends most of its time leaning away from home, which is why it works so well under big emotional choruses in pop and pop-punk.
It is the same harmonic DNA as several other loops on this list — proof that in music, order is everything.
Songs built on it
A few well-known examples — every one of them the same chords, moving in the same order.
- Grenade— Bruno Mars
- Africa— Toto
- Save Tonight— Eagle-Eye Cherry
- Numb— Linkin Park
vi – IV – I – V in every key
The same numerals, twelve different sets of letters. Tap a key to explore all its chords.