First Basic Progression: I – IV – V
This progression is the first one to learn if you want to play parang songs. The progression is based on three main chords: The first one or key, the fourth one and the fifth one.
First, Fourth, Fifth? What do these positions mean?
These numbers are the relative position of each chord in a scale for a given key.
Let’s say you are playing in D major. Then the key will be D major and the chords that compose the D major chord scale will be:
To enable a progression in the form I IV V we would only require to grab these specific chords from that scale. So, in this case, we would have the following:
It is important to note that normally Parang music will use A7 instead of A. It will be still a V but Parang music requires to play it in its Seventh form. So our final progression would be:
- D major
- G major
- A seventh
In other order of ideas, this progression consists of only 3 chords, but in most of the cases and genres we will need to do four measures, so it is usual to use this progression repeating A seventh twice. You will be able to detect this as soon as we start these exercises below:
Let’s practice this progression!
I – IV – V
Key: D major
Tempo: 80 bpm
I – IV – V
Key: G major
Tempo: 80 bpm
I – IV – V
Key: E minor
Tempo: 80 bpm
An example of a song that uses this progression extensively is La Mujer Favorecida, a Galeron in D major:
