7 Ways To Play The Same Guitar Chord Progression

Tommaso Zillio

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One of my students just sent me a link to a famous YouTube channel with several videos like: “11 songs that rip off other music” (or something like that), and asked me what I think about that.

I won’t tell you the name of that channel… because that YouTuber already wrote me a stern message to complain because he thought one of my videos was a criticism of one of his videos and was very offended and felt threatened even if his YT channel is way bigger than mine…. and the funny thing is I wasn’t even thinking about him when I made the video did nothing wrong and I do not want to make anybody feel bad.

But I can tell you what I think about it: it’s baloney. I respectfully disagree.

It’s also not very actionable, meaning that we learn very little from it.

See, you can’t say ‘this song was copied from this other song’ just because - for instance - the two songs use the same chord progression or have a similar melody.

Hey, all Blues is based essentially on 2-3 very similar chord progressions. Should we conclude that there are only 2-3 original Blues musicians, and all the others are copying?

And pretty much the same happens for any style (yup, including Jazz and Classical)

Personally, I’d rather think, research, and teach ways to take - for instance - the same chord progression and make it sound new, fresh, original.

Because it’s a fact that the WAY that you play the chord progression on your guitar CHANGES the emotional feeling of the chord progression.

And this is also actionable… and FUN.

So in this video I show you 7 different ways to play the exact same chord progression…

… and it’s insane how different the same chord progression may sound (and I’m barely scratching the surface)

P.S. If you happen to be curious about the ‘offending’ video, here it is (relevant):

P.P.S. Like I say, in the first video I’m just scratching the surface. Would you like to know hundreds of ways to play a chord progressions, and manipulate it to your will until it sounds like YOU want? You just need to take this course: Complete Chord Mastery