Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom

The \(\left.\text{I}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{V}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{vi}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{IV}\right.\) progression occurs in many popular songs, has a Wikipedia page¹, and has been mentioned in a New Yorker article² about bestselling novels (see the third paragraph from the end of the article). The music group Axis of Awesome made a compilation of several songs³ with the \(\left.\text{I}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{V}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{vi}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{IV}\right.\) progression that makes for an entertaining summary (warning: there is some language after the 5-minute mark).

Here is a written-out example that includes the \(\left.\text{I}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{V}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{vi}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{IV}\right.\) progression.

The \(\left.\text{I}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{V}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{vi}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{IV}\right.\) progression can be rotated to become \(\left.\text{vi}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{IV}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{I}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{V}\right.\) and \(\left.\text{IV}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{I}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{V}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{vi}\right.\).

Here is an example with the \(\left.\text{vi}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{IV}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{I}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{V}\right.\) progression.

The \(\left.\text{vi}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{IV}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{I}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{V}\right.\) progression can also be thought of as being in minor: \(\left.\text{i}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{VI}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{III}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{VII}\right.\)

Whether you hear this progression in major or minor depends on whether you hear the first chord as the tonic or if you hear the third and fourth chord as tonic and dominant.

Here is an example with the \(\left.\text{IV}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{I}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{V}\right.\)–\(\left.\text{vi}\right.\) progression.