Your First Progression
I–IV–V–I: four chords that thousands of songs are built on. Play them in the left hand with voicings that barely move, count four beats each, and put a melody note on top.
Builds on: 3.3 Triads Under the Hand
Chords in a row
A single chord is a colour; chords in a row are a story. Number the triads of C major by their scale degree — C is I, F is IV, G is V, A minor is vi — and you can describe the harmony of most popular music with a handful of Roman numerals. The oldest and most useful of them is I–IV–V–I: home, away, tension, home. Play C, F, G, C, four beats each, and you have played the skeleton of a thousand folk songs, hymns and blues choruses. Its modern cousin I–V–vi–IV (C, G, Am, F) underlies an astonishing share of the pop charts of the last fifty years.
Root position moves too far
Play I–IV–V–I with the shapes from the last lesson and the left hand has to leap: C is at the pinky, F is a fourth higher, G a fifth. Every leap is a chance to miss and a bump in the sound. Pianists solve this with voicing: keeping the same three notes but reordering them so the hand hardly moves. Keep C in the pinky for the F chord and play C F A — still an F chord, just with C at the bottom. For G, drop to B D G, one key below the C shape. Now the whole progression lives within a sixth, and each change moves at most two fingers by one key.
Notice what stays in place. From C to F, the pinky holds C and the other two fingers step up. From F to G, all three slide down by a step. From G back to C, the pinky climbs one key and the shape opens. Practise each change on its own until the fingers know the move, then join them.
Counting through the changes
A chord change that lands late drags the whole song. Count aloud — one, two, three, four — and prepare the next shape during “three, four”: lift slightly, move, and be resting on the new keys before the next “one”. The hand should arrive early and wait, never arrive on the beat in a hurry. With the metronome from Unit 2 running at 60, four beats give you plenty of time; later you will do this at 120 without thinking.
A melody on top
The extra exercise adds a single right-hand note above each chord — a chord tone, so it always fits. This is how accompaniment works in practice: the left hand holds the harmony, the right hand sings. Balance is the challenge again, now between hands: the left plays softly and evenly, the right note rings out. If the chords swamp the melody, play the left hand with less arm weight and let the right hand drop from the wrist.
Stop on the G chord and wait. It wants to go somewhere — and where it wants to go is C. That pull from V to I is the engine of nearly all Western harmony; the theory course explains why. Here, just feel it, and let the final C land like coming home.
Eight chords in the left hand, two passes through I–IV–V–I; then the same with the right hand adding one note per chord.
🎹 Exercise — I–IV–V–I, Left Hand
C, F, G, C twice through, in the close voicings that keep the pinky near C3. Four beats per chord; the exercise waits for each one.
- Prepare each shape early: move during beats three and four, land on one.
- C → F: the pinky stays, the two upper fingers step up.
- F → G: the whole hand slides down one key.
Press the highlighted key to begin — any input works.
🎹 Exercise — Both Hands: Chords + Melody
The same left-hand progression with one right-hand chord tone on top of each chord. All four notes must sound together.
- Left hand soft and even, right-hand note clear on top.
- Second pass: the melody moves more — read the finger number on the key.
Press the highlighted key to begin — any input works.