Chord progressions

Drill the chord sequences songs are built from. They are written in numerals, so one progression works in every key.

Chords in order

Songs put chords in familiar sequences: I–vi–IV–V, ii–V–I, the twelve-bar blues. Progression practice asks for those chords in order, again and again, until your hand knows the next chord without working it out.

The row above the question shows the whole progression with your place in it, so you can see the next chord before you need it.

The practice screen walking the progression C, Am, F, G, with the chord row above. — I–vi–IV–V in C. The badge at the bottom shows the progression and its current key.

The chord chart strip showing the four chords of the progression. — The chord chart. Click a chord to drill only that part of the progression.

Write it in numerals, play it in every key

You type a progression as degrees rather than chord names: ii V I, or 1 6 4 5 if you prefer plain numbers. The same four symbols then give C–Am–F–G in C and D–Bm–G–A in D, and the app does the transposing.

The notation also accepts qualities (ii7, V7, Imaj7, viim7b5), accidentals (bVII), inversions after a dot (V7.3, I.2) and bar lines (|) if you want to see the phrasing.

A ii-V-I progression with the question asked as a numeral. — ii7–V7–Imaj7, asked in degrees. The question can also give the chord name, a plain number or the function.

Sixty-two to start from

You can start from a preset instead of writing your own. The presets are sorted into pop, jazz and classical, and include doo-wop, the pop-punk four, several variants of ii–V–I, the circle progression and cadences. Pick one, then edit the text if you want to change it.

One progression, vi–IV–I–V, carries so many pop songs that it has a page of its own, with the song list and a link for every key.

The presets list, showing pop progressions with their numerals. — Presets can include inversions. The colored numbers show which inversion each chord should be in.

Then move it around the circle

One key soon feels comfortable, so move on to the next. Turn on advancing after repeats and the drill switches to a new key once you have played the progression cleanly a few times. It moves round the circle of fifths or chromatically, in either direction.

The progressions section of Preferences: the progression field, the key and the scale. — Type the progression, then pick its key and scale.

Progressions work in minor keys as well: set the scale to minor and the same numerals give the chords of the minor key.

On a phone

Try a drill

I–vi–IV–V The doo-wop turnaround, in C major. Try it →ii–V–I with sevenths The jazz standby, with four notes per chord. Try it →vi–IV–I–V A four-chord loop common in pop. Try it →A minor loop i–bVII–bVI–V, the harmonic-minor descent. Try it →

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