50s Progression
Another common way of extending the I - IV - V sequence is by adding the chord of the sixth scale degree, giving the sequence I - vi - IV - V or I - vi - ii - V, sometimes called the 50s progression.
In fact this sequence had been in use from the earliest days of classical music (used often by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), but after generating popular hits such as Rogers and Hart's "Blue Moon" (1934), Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields' 1936 "The Way You Look Tonight", and Hoagy Carmichael's "Heart and Soul" (1938), it became associated with the black American vocal groups of the 1940s, The Ink Spots and The Mills Brothers ("Till Then"), and thus later became the entire basis of the 1950s doo-wop genre, a typical example being The Monotones' "The Book of Love".
Taken up into the pop mainstream, for example with Felice and Boudleaux Bryant's "All I Have to Do Is Dream", a hit for The Everly Brothers, in the 1960s it continued to generate records as otherwise disparate as The Paris Sisters' "I Love How You Love Me" (written by Mann and Kolber) and Boris Pickett's "Monster Mash".
It continued to be used sectionally, as in the refrain of The Beatles' "Girl", and also to form the harmonic basis of further new songs for decades ("Every Breath You Take" by The Police, and "Don't Get Me Wrong" by The Pretenders.
Read more about this topic: Chord Progression
Famous quotes containing the word progression:
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