Chord Progressions Archives

One of the most common phrases spoken at a jam session is “it’s just a one, four, five!” Long story short, it’s a very helpful hint... if we know how to find our ones, fours, and fives.

This week in The Brown’stone on No Treble, Rich Brown shares a fantastic exercise that will help you play almost any progression anywhere on the fretboard.

In her new “Keep It Groovy” lesson, Ryan Madora digs into the iconic bass line on Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” If you have any aspiration to play in a bar, wedding, or corporate band, this is definitely a bass line that you need to know.

This week in The Brown’stone on No Treble, Rich Brown takes a look at a great way to practice when playing over the II-V-I chord progression. These tips and exercises open up the mind (and the fretboard).

This week in The Brown’stone on No Treble, Rich Brown wants to take another look at triads and inversions. In this lesson, he shows how you can use these three notes to play the II-V-I chord progression in a variety of different ways.

In this “Bass & Creativity” lesson, Olivier Babaz focuses on the beautiful colors made through suspended voicings. He walks through the basics of sus4 & sus2 chords and their most common use.

For this lesson, we'll be looking into some alternate Lydian colors. We will take a look at the colors and applications of the Augmented Lydian and Dominant Lydian, both as full modes and as temporary colors integrated within more usual chord sequences.

This new lesson focuses on using transposition cycles applied to both chord colors and intervallic shapes to offer an alternative to diatonic harmonization.

One universally befuddling inquiry is deceivingly simple, “what key are we in?” As easy as it sounds, the key of a song can often be interpreted in different ways. That’s the subject of this “Lightbulb Moment” column.

This Bass & Creativity lesson is the second part about alterations of dominant chords. Today Olivier Babaz takes a look at b9 and #9 added to a 7 chord within a II V I.

In this “Bass & Creativity” lesson, Olivier Babaz takes a deep dive into some alterations of the dominant chord. With the help of piano and on bass, he covers how to get used to the colors and options of b13 and #11 within a II V I progression.

The ii-V-I is one of the most common chord progressions in music. As bassists, we have a horizontal view of the harmonic movement. Today we’ll see how other instruments view the progression and implement voice leading to build interesting lines.