Chord progressions in all 12 keys

The cadence jazz is built on. Each root falls a fifth, so the ear always knows where the next chord is going.

The same falling fifths with a darker colour: a half diminished ii, a dominant borrowed from harmonic minor, and a minor tonic.

Four chords that carry a large share of pop songwriting. Start it on vi and it turns melancholy without changing a note.

The same four chords as I V vi IV, started on the relative minor. It sounds sadder because it begins away from home.

The doo wop changes. Home, its relative minor, then subdominant and dominant leading straight back.

Tonic, subdominant, dominant: the three primary chords, and the skeleton of a great deal of folk, rock and blues.

Three dominant seventh chords over twelve bars. Even the tonic is a dominant seventh, so home itself has an edge, and that is the sound of the blues.

A chain of falling fifths that starts on iii and walks home one fifth at a time.

The turnaround at the end of countless standards. It leaves home and comes back in four chords.

A ii V I with the dominant replaced by its tritone substitute, so the bass slides down by semitones instead of falling a fifth.

Two chords borrowed from the parallel minor that reach the tonic from a whole step below instead of a fifth above.

A Mixolydian vamp. The flat seven chord comes from the parallel mode, and it is the sound of a great deal of rock.

A bass line falling by step from the tonic to the dominant, landing on a major V that only harmonic minor provides.

A minor key loop with no V chord in it. It never quite lands, which is why it suits a chorus that wants to keep moving.

Subdominant to dominant, then a sidestep to iii and vi instead of going home. A staple of J pop songwriting.