Capstone: Analyzing a Progression From Scratch

You now have every tool this course set out to give you. Analyzing any chord progression — one you're studying, or one you're writing yourself — comes down to asking the same short sequence of questions every time.

First, find the key: look at the key signature or the notes actually used, and confirm it by ear — does a I chord (or i, if minor) feel like home? Second, label every chord with a Roman numeral in that key, including any accidentals that suggest a secondary dominant (V/x) or a borrowed chord from the parallel key.

Third, group those Roman numerals by function — tonic, predominant, dominant — and notice the shape: where does the progression sit still, where does it build, where does it release? Fourth, find the cadences: every phrase ending is one of the four types from this course, and the type tells you how strong a stop it is. Fifth, check the melody against the harmony: which notes are chord tones, which are non-chord tones, and are any of them tendency tones pulling toward a specific resolution?

Finally, step back and ask the songwriting question underneath all of it: where is this passage building expectation, and where — and how — does it deliver, delay, or subvert it? That question is the same one whether you're analyzing a two-hundred-year-old chorale or writing tomorrow's chorus. Everything in this course was building toward being able to ask it, and answer it, by ear.