Chord Progressions The Doo-Wop Chords

In this lesson we are going to give you the most used chord progression in popular music.

This progression or one of it's variations keep coming up over and over again. So it makes sense that a thorough understand of this basic progressions will help you on your way to success in your guitar playing and song writing endevours.

So let's get started firstly with the Doo-Wop progression.

"Doo Wop" Progression

The chord formula for the Doo-Wop progression is I VI IV V

This progression has a long history in popular music dating back to jazz standards such as “Blue Moon” and Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” right through the popular music period of the 1950s with songs such as The Penguins “Earth Angel” Ritchie Valens “Donna”.

It’s popularity continued through the 1960s with hits such as Sam Cook’s “Wonderful World”, the Everly Brothers “Dream”, and more recently with “Lucky” by Jason Mraz”.

Practice the chord changes slowly at first and gradually build up to tempo of the example below.

Listen closely to the sound of the chord progression. Try to develop the ability to be able to recognise the changes when you hear them in a song you are listening to.

To play this progression in all keys go to this page for a download chart.