FOUR CHORD SONGS!!

by Gordon Harvey

I remember hiring a car on a holiday a few years ago. We could only tune the radio to one station, playing popular music, and as the songs cycled by, I started to realise that maybe a third of them featured the same four chords, nearly always for the same length each. It amazed me that that simple progression could inspire such quantity and variety of melodies. So, even if you’ve hardly touched a keyboard before, it mightn’t be beyond the imagination to learn those four chords and give yourself the chance to play the accompaniment to a huge list of songs.

Below is a by no means exhaustive list, compiled with the help, amongst others, of the amazing Axis of Awesome (includes a mild language warning):

Nelly – Just a Dream

Alphaville – Forever Young

Blink 182 – Dammit

The Last Goodnight – Pictures of You

James blunt – Beautiful

Waltzing Matilda

Beyonce – If I Were a Boy

Pink – U and Ur Hand

The Calling – Wherever you Go

Jason Mraz – I’m Yours

Marcy Playground – Sex and Candy

Mika – Happy Ending

Alex Lloyd – Amazing

Five for Fighting – Superman

Maroon 5 – She Will be Loved

Alicia Keys – No One

U2 – With or Without You

Auld Lang Syne

Kelly Clarkson – Behind These Hazel Eyes

Crowded House – Fall at your Feet

Casey Chambers – Not Pretty Enough

Richard Marx – Right Here Waiting

The Beatles – Let it Be

Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Under the Bridge

Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Otherside

Daryl Brathwaite – The Horses

Amiel – Lovesong

Journey – Don’t Stop Believin’

Men at Work – Down Under

A-Ha – Take On Me

Rihanna – Take a Bow

Green Day – When I Come Around

Eagle Eye Cherry – Save Tonight

Toto – Africa

Elton John – Can you Feel the Love

The Offspring – Self Esteem

The Offspring – You’re Gonna Go Far Kid

Andrea Bocelli – Time To Say Goodbye

Lady Gaga – Poker Face

Lady Gaga – Paparazzi

Elvis Presley – Always On My Mind

Aqua – Barbie Girl

The Fray – You Found Me

30h!3 – Don’t Trust Me

MGMT – Kids

Tim Minchin – Canvas Bags

Natalie Imbruglia – Torn

Israel Kamakawiwo’ole – Over the Rainbow

Lighthouse Family – High

Missy Higgins – Scar

Jordin Sparks – Tattoo

Black Eyed Peas – Where is the Love?

Gregory Brothers – Double Rainbow

Train – Hey Soul Sister

Akon – Don’t Matter

Akon – Beautiful

John Denver – Country Roads

Jimmy Eat World – Hear You Me

Hayley Westenra – Heaven

Jack Johnson – Taylor

Smashing Pumpkins – Bullet with Butterfly Wings

Joan Osborne – One of Us

Avril Lavigne – Complicated

One Republic – Apologize

Eminem – Love the Way You Lie

Feargal Sharkey – A Good Heart

Thirsty Merc – Twenty Good Reasons

Bob Marley – No Woman No Cry

In some of the above cases the song may have sections that include other chords, but I’m sure you have a sense of how much these chords allow you to do.
One thing to know about before you begin is called ‘key’. A chord progression can start anywhere on the piano. From different starting places it will sound higher or lower, but still be recognisably the same progression. It’s a bit like having different colours of the same model of car. I’ll talk about two keys – a very simple one and the one Axis of Awesome use, and then we’ll look at finding the chord progression in any key.

First key

For the first key, I’ll assume you’ve had just a handful of Simply Music lessons. One of the very first songs you’ll have learned, and the very first accompaniment project, is a song called Honey Dew, which uses the chords C, Am, F, and G. That’s another very popular chord progression. These are all the chords we’ll use for this project, just in a different order. Change it to C, G, Am, F and you’re done!

Second key

This key starts on E major. If you’ve started the Simply Music Accompaniment Program, you’ll know this is a triangle shape (white on the bottom, black in the middle, white on top). Next is B major, a curve shape (white, black, black). Next is C minor, a triangle, and last is G major, a straight line on white keys.

Any key

A particular 4-chord song might be in any key, that is it might have any major chord as its “I”. If you want to play the song in any key, you need to know a little more. The progression is referred to as I, V, VI, IV. Thinking of my earlier analogy of car colours, if C, G, Am, F is “Red Mini Cooper” and E, B, C#m, A is “Blue Mini Cooper”, then I, V, VI, IV is “Any Mini Cooper”. You need to know how to find the I, V, VI, and IV chords from any starting note. A Simply Music student who has learned about I, IV, V is nearly there – the only chord they don’t know is VI. The easy way to do this is, from the V, bring your bottom note up by a whole step. This note is the VI. From that note you simply build a minor chord. As a Simply Music student, you should know how to make a minor chord, but if you haven’t learned that yet, it’s easy too. Make a major chord then move the middle note down a half step.

Although it’s all pretty straightforward, you might as well use your learning tools to simplify things as much as possible. Using the chord shapes might help you memorise the sequence visually. So, starting from D, the chords will be D, A, Bm, G and the shapes will be triangle, triangle, curve, straight line. These shapes are not intended to tell you every detail, just to serve as reminders of what you’ve already worked out.
The great thing about this skill (called transposing) is you can change the chords to fit your vocal range. And while you’re at it, why not come up with a melody of your own? Unlike Axis of Awesome, you needn’t wait 40 years to write a hit song!

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