The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #97795   Message #1929320
Posted By: M.Ted
07-Jan-07 - 01:19 PM
Thread Name: Name this chord progression
Subject: RE: Name this chord progression
If you're looking for songs that feature a C/A7/D7/G7 chord progression--which is what you have, at least with Murray's corrections. Think of Alice's Restaurant, JaDa, Keep on Truckin', and similar folkie type tunes, and a lot of the old time Dixieland or whatever you want to call it jazz stuff--Darktown Strutter's Ball, Hard-Hearted Hannah, A Good Man is Hard to Find, Baby, Won't You Please Come Home--And a lot of older tunes, like "In My Merry Oldsmobile"-

This is one of the standard "Circle of Fourths" chord progressions, which basically means that you jump from the tonic chord(easiest to use is C) to any chord you want, and move back to the Dominant Seventh(which is G7) and then resolve to the Tonic(C). Usually, it is just a short jump-to D7 (C-D7-G7-C) or A7, which we have, or ocassionally E7--(C-E7-A7-D7-C)--of course, the changes are worked out so that they fit into four measure phrases--but you can go anywhere you want--all the way around the circle-though there isn't a lot to be gained by going much farther than the E7--

When you start thinking about what chord progression fits where, you start to become an arranger--and when you are an arranger, it helps to know a bit of music theory--which is what this is--