Chord Progressions: The Complete Guide for Composers

What Is a Chord Progression?

A chord progression is a sequence of chords played in a particular order. When we group chords and their harmonic functions together, that grouping is a chord progression.

One useful way to think about progressions is through functional harmony — the idea that each diatonic chord tends to play one of three roles:

• Tonic — home. Stability, rest, arrival.
• Predominant (subdominant) — departure. Movement away from home.
• Dominant — tension that tends to resolve back to the tonic.

Seen this way, a progression is a path through these functions, and the path tonic → predominant → dominant → tonic has shaped a great deal of Western music over the centuries. It's also the template we use when students write their first progression in our courses.

In a major key, the diatonic chords group into these functions as follows:

The iii and vi act as gentler, more colored shades of the tonic, while the vii° leans so strongly toward resolution that it almost always carries dominant function.

It's worth saying clearly: you don't have to build your progressions on functional harmony. Plenty of compelling music — modal writing, planing, much film and game scoring — moves outside functional logic entirely. But functional harmony is a practical foundation, and knowing it makes the departures from it more deliberate.

Composers write progressions in Roman numerals so they work in any key: uppercase for major chords (I, IV, V), lowercase for minor (ii, iii, vi). In C major, I–IV–V–I means C–F–G–C.

Common Chord Progressions

Before looking at longer progressions, it helps to know five common two-chord pairings that appear again and again in tonal music:

1. I–V (tonic → dominant). One of the strongest connections in tonal harmony, useful in many genres — composers past and present have relied on it constantly.
2. I–IV (tonic → predominant). A classic departure from home.
3. IV–V (predominant → dominant). A pairing that drives toward resolution.
4. ii–V (predominant → dominant). A related motion, particularly familiar from jazz.
5. vi–ii. A gentle chain that often sets up a ii–V.

These pairings are common largely because our ears have heard them across so many genres that they've become part of the shared vocabulary of Western harmony. Combined into longer progressions, they produce sequences many listeners will recognize:

• I–IV–V–I — the foundational cadential loop, found in music of many eras and genres
• I–V–vi–IV — the familiar "four chords" of pop, heard in countless songs and media cues
• I–vi–IV–V — the 50s doo-wop loop of classic songwriting
• ii–V–I — the jazz cadence, often found within film scores as well
• i–VI–III–VII — a widely used minor loop in modern cinematic and epic music

One practical refinement from our piano curriculum: instead of a plain I–IV–V, try inserting the iii chord — I–iii–IV–V. That single addition can make a simple progression sound noticeably more expressive, because iii offers a softer, more wistful shade of the tonic.

The Piano Composer Progressions like these are its starting point — developed through voicing, embellishment, variation, and ornamentation into complete pieces with real form. For composers and producers in any genre whose ideas start at the piano. Explore the course

Minor Chord Progressions

Minor keys play a central role in cinematic and dramatic writing — though of course a great deal of film and game music lives in major keys and modes as well. The functional mechanics are the same; what changes are the qualities of the diatonic chords: i, ii°, III, iv, v (or V), VI, VII. Grouped by function:

The dominant-function chords shown here use the raised leading tone (G♯ in A minor, from harmonic minor). Two honest footnotes to that: the vii° built on it (G♯°) is textbook-correct but rarely used as a chord in its own right — in practice it tends to appear in inversion, or folded into V7 (E7 contains all of its notes). And the raised leading tone itself is an option, not a requirement. V major offers the strongest, most classical resolution; the natural-minor v (Em) and VII (G) resolve more gently and often behave modally rather than functionally — a color that modern film and game writing uses constantly, as several of the progressions below show.

Some widely used minor progressions:

• i–VI–III–VII — a staple of modern epic and cinematic writing (in A minor: Am–F–C–G)
• i–iv–v–i — the pure minor cycle, with a darker, more classical character
• i–VII–VI–VII — a circling pattern common in trailer and game battle music
• i–iv–VII–III — a descending-fifths chain with an old, inevitable quality

A useful habit from our trailer curriculum: when writing in a minor key, occasionally think in the parallel or relative major as well — noting both readings of the same progression can suggest ideas that a single frame of reference wouldn't.

Sad and Emotional Chord Progressions

Sadness in harmony comes from more than the choice of diatonic chords. One of the most reliable sources of emotional color is the borrowed chord — taking a chord from the parallel minor (or another mode) and placing it inside a major-key progression.

A very common and effective move: changing IV to iv. Take a plain I–IV–V–I in C major and let the F chord become F minor. That single altered note (A → A♭) changes the mood significantly — in the borrowed-chord workshops of our course The Legend of Otoe, it's described as giving a straightforward diatonic progression "spice and life and mystery." A refinement from the same workshop: rather than replacing the IV outright, you can divide its duration — let the F sound first, then darken it to F minor within the same bar before resolving. The minor iv also tends to pull directly home: the descending line from iv to I is often more satisfying than routing through V.

Other reliably emotional colors:

• The minor v (I–v) — borrowing the dominant from the parallel minor removes its drive to resolve and leaves a muted, resigned quality
• ♭VI in major — an unexpected turn: I–♭VI–IV–I
• I–♭VI–iiø7–V–I — the familiar I–vi–ii–V, recolored with borrowed chords into something more mysterious and cinematic
• vi–IV–I–V — a ballad progression whose melancholy comes from beginning on the relative minor

The underlying principle from those workshops: you're mixing and matching flavors of tonality while grounding them on straightforward, logical progressions. The simpler the base progression, the more room the borrowed colors have to speak.

Dark Chord Progressions

For villains, horror, and tension writing, composers often move beyond borrowed chords into more ambiguous territory:

• i–♭II (the Phrygian ♭II) — a menacing half-step relationship with a long history in dramatic music
• Minor chords a tritone apart (Cm–F♯m) — a pairing that resists resolution
• Chromatic mediants (Cm–A♭m, Cm–Em) — third-related chords outside the key, a familiar color in contemporary scoring
• A static minor tonic over a moving bass line — tension through harmonic stillness

Each of these trades functional clarity for atmosphere — which is precisely why they suit unsettling material.

Jazz Colors: 7th Chords and Extensions

You don't need to write jazz to make use of its harmonic colors. Adding sevenths to every chord of a diatonic progression — a technique demonstrated in our anime and JRPG composition course — makes the same progression noticeably more colorful without changing a single root. Continue extending into 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths and the palette expands quickly: counting the variants, that's 2,592 possible chord colorations available to your progressions.

The ii–V–I cadence is a natural entry point: in C, Dm7–G7–Cmaj7. It appears well beyond jazz, often woven quietly into film scoring.

Japanese Chord Progressions: Anime, JRPGs, and the Royal Road

Modern Japanese music — anime openings, city pop, JRPG soundtracks — has developed its own set of characteristic progressions, and they're a core part of our anime and JRPG composition curriculum. Four of them define much of the style:

1. The Royal Road Progression (王道進行, Ōdō Shinkō) — IV–V–iii–vi. Japanese musicians call it "the royal road" — a well-traveled path, like a broad imperial road. In C major: F–G–Em–Am. It begins away from home, moves through the dominant, and settles on minor chords rather than resolving — one reason anime openings can feel triumphant and bittersweet at once. It often appears in the later stages of a progression, though in opening themes it frequently serves as the main idea itself.

2. The "Seal" Progression — IV–V–vi. A diatonic climb that deflects to the relative minor — the harmonic engine of Seal's Kiss from a Rose, which is where the nickname comes from.

3. Diatonic Walks. Stepwise chord motion up or down the scale — IV–iii–ii–I, or climbing to V before falling home. As our instructor puts it: "you will always be safe writing chord progressions like this."

4. The Nichijou Progression. The most involved of the four — a chain of secondary dominants and secondary ii–V–I motions, named after its prominent use in the opening of the anime Nichijou.

The Legend of Otoe — Composing Music for Anime and JRPGs The four progressions in this section are taught in Level 1 of the course, which continues into melody writing over these changes, chord extensions, and full arrangement. Explore the course

Secondary Dominants: Adding Direction to a Progression

One well-established way to make a progression more interesting is the secondary dominant: borrowing the pull of the V–I resolution and aiming it at a chord other than the tonic. Through what theory calls tonicization, the target chord is treated, briefly, as a temporary home — and preceded by its own V.

Take I–ii–V–I in C. Replace the D minor with D major — a V-of-V — and the progression gains a stronger pull: I–V/V–V–I. Aim a secondary dominant at the ii chord instead (A major, V-of-ii) and it naturally sets a fresh ii–V–I in motion — a device our course highlights at the end of the Kakariko Village theme from Ocarina of Time. The idea extends further: any target chord can be preceded by a full ii–V or IV–V approach, as heard in passages of Joe Hisaishi's One Summer's Day from Spirited Away.

Modes: Progressions With a Different Color

Every mode has color notes — and the chords containing them are the ones that make the mode audible. In a Dorian progression, that means emphasizing the chords built on Dorian's raised 6th; in Phrygian, the ♭II chord carries much of the character, supported by the other chords containing that lowered second.

A brief reference for dramatic writing: Lydian tends toward wonder (I–II), Dorian toward a noble melancholy (i–IV), Phrygian toward threat (i–♭II), Mixolydian toward a heroic, folk-like quality (I–♭VII).

How to Write Your Own Chord Progression

The step-by-step process we teach in our piano curriculum, condensed:

1. Start with the phrase template. Tonic → predominant → dominant → (tonic). Choose one chord for each function. Blocked chords, nothing elaborate.
2. Add or substitute one expressive chord. Insert the iii before the IV, or substitute vi in the tonic slot. One change at a time.
3. Voice-lead it. Move each voice the least amount possible between chords. Smooth voice leading makes even a simple progression sound polished.
4. Color it. A single borrowed chord — iv is a good starting point — or sevenths across the progression.
5. Vary the repetition. A principle from our hybrid-orchestral course: if a track repeats one progression, change it on the final pass — alter the last chord, or append a short climb — so the ending doesn't feel like a copy of what came before.

And the practice habit our courses return to again and again: play everything in all 12 keys, and experiment with progressions you find in other music — the simpler the base progression, the more room there is to explore.