14) Chord Progressions (part I)

[Post #14] This is the first post on chord progressions with 3 or more chords, that are the most used chord progression in music. There are several ways to classify these sequences (strong, modal, etc.), I think that this could make confusion in this blog, as this post is not for professional composers. This is the reason why I prefer to make a list of them.

Please keep in mind the followings:

it is impossible to make a complete list, even if I make dozen of examples some progressions will always miss;
before reading you should be aware of the meaning of chords and inversions;
for each chord, you can add seventh, fourth, ninth, etc. Sometimes I also make such examples but the choice depends only on you;
The chords are written with Roman numerals. That means that in C major instead of C-D-E-F-G-A-B I write I-II-III-IV-V-VI-VII. If the chord is minor it will be followed by a small m (someone writes the Roman numerals with small letters).

1) Progression I - V - VIm - IV
Here are two examples with different inversions.

This is my piano recording of this progression:

This progression is one of the most used in music, just take a look at following video:

2) Progression I - VIm - IV - I
Here are two examples.

This is my piano recording of this progression:

3) Progression I - VIm - IV - V
Similar to the one before but the fourth chord is the V scale degree instead of the I.

This is my piano recording of this progression:

4) Progression Im - VI - IVm - Im
As the progression 2) but in the minor key. Here I also make 2 examples.

This is my piano recording of this progression:

5) Progression Im - VI - IVm - V
As the progression 3) but in a minor key. Here again 2 examples. You can decide if to play or not the note in red.

This is my piano recording of this progression:

6) Progression Im - VI - IVm - V
As the one before with a change on the fourth chord (the ninth ♭ instead of the seventh).

This is my piano recording of this progression:

7) Progression VI - VII - Im
This is not a I - II - III sequence because we play in Em key. Our third chord (Em) is for this reason our first scale degree.

This is my piano recording that shows you this progression:

8) Progression VI - VII - Im - VII
Similar to the one before but with a change on the fourth chord.

This is my piano recording of this progression:

9) Progression VI - VII - Im - III
Similar to the one before but with a change on the fourth chord.

This is my piano recording of this progression:

10) Progression V - IV - I
This is not a I - II - IV sequence because we play in A major. For this reason, our last chord (A) is our first scale degree.

This is my piano recording of this progression:

11) Progression Im - VII - IVm
Two examples with different inversions.

This is my piano recording of this progression:

12) Progression Vm - IVm - Im
Similar to the one before but the second chord is a minor one. This is not a progression Im - VIIm - IVm because we play now in A minor. For this reason, A is our first scale degree.

This is my piano recording of this progression:

13) Progression IV - I - V
Here two different examples.

These are two piano recordings of this progression:

14) Progression I - IV - V - I
15) Progression I - V - IV - I
The difference between these progressions is the order of the second and third chords. In my audio file, I play the sequence I - IV - V - I first. The final loop shows you the sequence I - V - IV - I.

This is my piano recording of this progression:

16) Progression I - IV - V

This is my piano recording of this progression:

17) Progression IV - V - I
As the two before, this progression is used very often. At the moment the last one that used it (that I remember) is James Morrison in the chorus of "I Won't Let You Go".