The 4 Chord song

Hey Matty. I just had to jump in.

The 4 chord thing. This was one of two standard progressions. The most popular being the 3 chord 1-4-5 deal that was the blues. The blues was an inspiration for other styles including rock and roll and many jazz styles.

The progression your talking about (Ive not played in 10 years so my ear is a bit rusty) ...anyways, let's use C scale as reference (keyboards pref). So that's C,G,B-flat, F (although is he playing in G maybe? , hehe. Where's my tuning fork? haha. My ears going.).

I've heard that progression in the 60's although more prominently in the early 70's with R&R and indeed it was a popular progression.
It may have gone back to the 50's as well but I'd have to go back and listen to some more from that period. I'm pretty sure it began in the 60's.

But the 3 chord blues has much broader influence than the 4 chord Rock progression shown here. 3 chord blues continues to influence all aspects of current music. That 4 chord progression does not, well, it's more of a child of the blues, than a direct contributor itself, imo.


//Actually, sorry about my ear, but when they did the Beatles,'Let it Be', the progression was C,G,Am,F, and it went by pretty quick. But some others were in b-flat. Can anyone check this out? I don't have a keyboard in front of me but I think they're trying to pull a fast one. :)

///lol, I suk, haha. So it appears to be C-G-A:minor-F referenced to the key of C.
I could have sworn I heard b-flat in there. My bad. Haha. Oh well, ya'll got some history lessons anyways. Sooooo, that, progression originated from where? I'm done for the night.:) :laugh:
 
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Haha Gotta love the I V VI IV progression...but yeah, when I heard that Jason Mraz song on TV with that progression the whole way through.....:badputer:
 
I think it'd be interesting to see a line graph with the popularities of different chord progressions going back to the beginning of music.

It's pretty hard to write music with unique chord progressions though... sometimes you just have to go with one of the overused ones.
 
Everything is a ripoff now-a-days. I remember watching the Pachelbel Rant. I played the cello back in the day. So true.

And wow, Raptor - ton of information there. But really you are right. There are only so many chord progressions one can do.

Anyways, I found it amusing.
 
Very entertaining find. I'll admit that it's amazing how much such a simple progression can be used. I got together with some friends yesterday to play, but we didn't use that progression.
 
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