The Pop-Punk Progression (i.e. I V vi IV, such as C G Am F) goes nowhere.

glennmagusharvey

This progression bugs me.

It's so damn prevalent in music, yet it just goes nowhere.  It's like a stalling pattern.  You start off strong, on the tonic chord, then regress to the dominant, submediant, then subdominant chords, and the tension in the music decreases with it.  Then you just repeat it from the beginning, and there we go again, endlessly repeating this same sequence, yet still going nowhere, by starting of strong then waning in its tension.

Heck, even the same sequence in a minor key is better.  In a minor key, we end on what is the vi in this case, so at least there's a strong dramatic tension going from the V to the vi (e.g. from G to Am in F C G Am).

Compare that to, say, the humoresque progression, which can also repeat endlessly, but it starts off weak then gains tension.  There's a much stronger forward momentum going especially from IV to V and V to I, so you end strong with momentum to repeat the sequence again.  And again.

Now why the heck is the pop-punk progression so damn prevalent in American pop music?  Why do they so like plagal-direction chord movement (from IV to I and I to V) rather than authentic-direction chord movement (from V to I and I to IV)?

For reference:
Examples of the "pop-punk progression": http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheFourChordsOfPop
Examples of the "humoresque progression": http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HumoresqueProgression

GLORIOUSLeader

The only thing I could contribute to this thread is saying that the opening riffs of God Save The Queen and The View from the Afternoon sound incredibly alike. 

glennmagusharvey

Bumping because MadassAlex could figure out the chord progression I wrote up.

inkblot

Does anyone have a MIDI version of this progression?

DarkDecapodian

Just hummed the progression to myself, and yep, it really is common - blink-182 uses it frequently, not coincidentally. I guess it's chosen because it's melodic enough to sustain sufficient interest, but not dynamic enough to overshadow the all-important chorus.

MadassAlex

BEFORE I EVEN CLICKED ON IT

I suspect its popularity has something to do with the magical combination of the I IV and V. Note that one hell of a lot of alt-rock and modern rock seem to use the vi chord, especially in minor keys where the ii is a diminished chord and too harsh for most of their intended audiences. So if you want to go outside the blues-rock standard and add another chord, the vi (or VI in a minor key) is the obvious one.

That said, the vi or VI, poorly used, sounds pretty limp. The way its used (or not used) can be the difference between rock and sappy pop.

glennmagusharvey

Well, both progressions contain I, IV, and V, but it's the plagal direction that makes the progression stall, in my opinion.

MadassAlex

Well, it's certainly very recursive.

It doesn't really set up a cadence very nicely, nor does it leave much room for variation given that it uses the three most important chords ever already. I mean, where do you go from there? How do you generate impact when the audience is so used to chords of that magnitude?

I guess this is why hard rock and traditional metal riffs and progressions tend to have a leg up in this respect. There's a lot of repetition on the i III and VII, but those don't rule out the all important iv and v for later on. But perhaps that's unfair, since pop punk and the like have real issues with going outside the box, whereas hard rock and metal habitually throw chords and phrases including the b5 at you, perhaps the natural 7 in a minor key as well. And b2.

So I suppose the issue is less the progression itself, but the context in which it's employed. Creative music makes mundane, obvious things awesome via juxtaposition.

Wicked223

I hate that I understand every word in this thread with 100% clarity, yet I still have no idea what you're talking about.

MillerCross

^ I know that feel, bro.

MadassAlex

If you've got the patience to find stuff and sift through the shit, the internet is a pretty decent music theory teacher.

It's easier with guitar, though, since the fretboard is so linear. So it kind of spells music theory out by definition.

MillerCross

I know some musical theory, but I'm too lazy to translate all the musical jargon to Spanish. 

glennmagusharvey

@Wicked223 I dislike a certain chord progression and am trying to figure out why, and I have a possible reason that draws upon music theory.

@MadassAlex: Yeah, I tend to listen to more pop, J-pop, and dance/techno/bubblegum/whatever than metal.  Maybe I should listen to more metal, but I've never been a huge fan of the genre for some reason.

MillerCross

Can I like hear an example of both of them? Which reminds me:

Just hummed the progression to myself, and yep, it really is common

wish I had that good an ear. ;_;

MadassAlex

@GMH: If you're ever ready to try, I'd suggest you start with Blind Guardian. They're a band that no non-metalhead knows, but every metal-listener does know of. They're accessible enough to be widely loved, but not quite accessible enough to gain significant popularity outside of central Europe.

glennmagusharvey

^^ Get yourself the TinyPiano program.  It turns your computer keyboard into a piano keyboard.  Literally, you can press keys and some of them play notes, and they're arranged like a piano keyboard's arrangement.  Very handy little program.