Hey everybody! Welcome back to Playground
Sessions. I'm Phil, and today I've got another video in our Popular Music Deconstructed
series, and we're going to be looking at how to play another one of music's most popular chord
progressions, the 1-4-5 progression. Now as many of you may know, these three chords are basically
the building blocks to modern music. These are the three defining chords of a key and can be found
in pretty much all genres, all styles of music, so I'm excited to be showing you this progression,
the 1-4-5. And for today's video, we're going to be looking at this progression in the key of
G specifically. We're going to be looking at songs by the Beatles, REM, and Bob Dylan, as
well as a Christmas tune, Joy to The World, that all share this progression, and the 1-4-5.
So before we dig into our first song example, let's quickly review the key of G. We're going to
look at the scales and we're going to look at the chords that make up G major. So let's start with
the left hand. This is a video about chords, so really the whole video we're going to be focusing
on this guy, and we're going to put it down in a low G position with our pinky on a low G. Okay,
now we're going to walk up this scale, but before we do, take a look up at the key signature in
this example up here. Key of G, we see one sharp in the key signature and that is on the F line.
Now what that means is that every F we see in this entire song in the key of G is actually
going to be an F sharp. So we don't play an F; we play F sharp. It tells us in the beginning of
the song, there, that every F is sharp. That's what the key signature does. So as we walk
through, we've got G, B, C, D, E, F sharp, G. Alright, and our scale degrees are as follows:
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and one again. So in the key of G, our seventh
scale degree is an F sharp. Don't forget about that. Let's play that scale together one more
time, guys, and say out loud the scale degree number as you play it just like I'm doing.
Ready, go. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, one. Fantastic job! So now, let's move from scales
into chords. We're going to be building chords on top of each of our scale degrees that we just went
over, which means we're going to start with our one scale degree G, and we're going to play a G
chord on top of that G note, okay, which is G, B, D. This is our one chord--the one chord in the
key of G. Our two chord is a chord that starts on the second scale degree, A. That gives us
an A minor, okay? Now here's where things get tricky. Remember that key signature up there,
that F sharp? Well, every F in a chord--every F, no matter what melody, scale, chord, is going
to be sharp. So our three chord starts on B, but this is not our chord because that has an
F natural, so we need to take our thumb--slide our hand back, put our thumb on F sharp for the
three chord, okay? This is a B minor chord. B, D, F sharp. Alright, let's keep it moving. Our
four chord, do you remember what the fourth scale degree is? That's right, C. So the C chord is our
four chord in the key of G. Alright, now moving to the five chord. There's another F in this one,
so make sure we play F sharp on top. D major. That's our five chord. Now, moving up to the six
chord is E minor. Now here's a real tricky one, our seventh chord. Our seven is F sharp, so
our seven chord actually looks like this. and our final one chord again,
G, to round us back out. So what I want to do now is play through each
chord in the key of G, just like we did. We're going to do it nice and slow, but we're going
to do it in time, okay? So remember F sharps and let's see if we could do it. Ready? One, two,
ready, go. Here's G. Here's our two chord. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. And one. Nice
work! Now because we're moving up and down to accommodate this F sharp, if you need
some extra practice going at that slow speed, definitely take advantage of this video lesson
because you can rewind and play it back as many times as you need. But when you are ready, let's
try it one more time. We're going to go double the speed. Alright, here we go. One, two, ready,
go. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and one. Excellent work! So now, let's look at our
progression, 1-4-5. I'm going to play the melody with my right hand but the left hand's going to be
the same progression throughout. Let's start with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by the Beatles. Here
we go. We'll do an extra five. One, four, five. Next up, let's try a tune by REM
called Stand. One, four, five. Two very different songs there. Same progression.
Last, let's do Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone. One, four, and five. So those are three
different songs from different eras that use the 1-4-5 progression. Now what I want to do
is take a look at that same progression in the context of notation with sheet music. So here's
Joy to the World. Slightly different pattern in the left hand, but you can see the 1-4-5 still
there. Here we go. One, two, one, two, ready, go. So let's just focus on this left hand part one
time. Now, we've been doing 1-4-5. You see here, there's things are in slightly different
order, we've got some different rhythms, but this is the exact same 1-4-5 progression.
Let's do it just the left hand. One, two, ready, go. One again, now a quick four, quick
five, back to one, four again, five. Okay, so we're kind of taking that 1-4-5 progression
and really tricking it out--tweaking it--to make it fit the song. But really it's all based
on that same progression. Alright everyone, well that's the 1-4-5 progression and that
concludes today's episode of Popular Music Deconstructed. We quickly brushed up on the key of
G by looking at the scale degrees and the chords, then we isolated our chord progression--the
one, or the G major; the four, or the C major; and the five chord, the D. Then we looked at a
few examples. In addition to those I already said, there's a bunch of other 1-4-5 songs, right, so
your mission this week is to hunt down a few more and leave them for me in the comments. If you
guys are calling out a lot of the same ones, we may have to do a song lesson on them, so let me
know what songs you're hearing with your ear that use 1-4-5. Well guys, once again, I'm Phil, and
if you love what you learned here today, remember, hit the subscribe button to your left! We've got
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