A Chord-Progression Library for Five Bands

This is a working reference of chord progressions across five bands I keep returning to as a writer: A Perfect Circle, Hooray for Earth, Life and Times, Radiohead, and Shiner. The point is to see what patterns these bands share, where each one diverges, and which moves I want in my own writing vocabulary.

Current state: 5 bands, 48 anchor songs queued, 5 charted, 32 canonical progressions in the library.

Method

A chord on a tab is the guitar player's view of one moment. The real chord stacks bass, guitar, keys, and the vocal melody together. A tab might say G when the bass plays E and the vocal lands on the m3, which makes the actual chord Em7 with a slash bass. The library captures both layers, chord as charted and chord as analyzed, so I can compare them per song.

Each chord gets a Roman numeral relative to the song's key, with mode tagged (Aeolian, Dorian, Mixolydian, Phrygian). Progressions in the library match against any rotation of the section's chord sequence, so the same shape lands no matter where the loop starts.

Naming convention

Minor-key songs use minor-context Roman names. III, VI, and VII without a flat prefix are the diatonic chords of natural minor. The flat prefix shows up only on chromatic alterations: bII for Phrygian color, bv or bvi for chromatic passing.

Major-key songs use the standard bIII, bVI, bVII to mark modal mixture borrowed from the parallel minor. Same chord, different label depending on the home mode.

The 32 canonical progressions

Diatonic major. I-IV (Two-chord rock), I-IV-V-IV (Classic rock cycle), I-IV-V-vi (Rising cycle), I-V (Two-chord open), I-V-vi-IV (Axis (4 chords)), I-iii-IV-V (Mediant lift), I-iii-vi-IV (Mediant 4-chord), vi-IV-I-V (Axis (rotated)), vi-V-IV-V (Lift-down-lift).

Modal mixture in major. I-bIII-bVI-bVII (Royal road minor (major)), I-bVII-IV (Mixolydian descent), I-bVII-bIII-bVI (Andalusian flip (major)), I-bVII-bVI (Aeolian descent in major).

Aeolian (natural minor). VI-VII-i (Aeolian cadence to tonic), i-III-VI-III (Pedal-on-i, alternating III-VI), i-III-VII-VI (Aeolian descent), i-III-VII-iv (Minor circle (variant)), i-VI (Two-chord minor-relative), i-VI-III-VII (Aeolian circle), i-VI-iv-VII (Deceptive minor), i-VII (Two-chord Aeolian), i-VII-VI-VII (Aeolian loop), i-VII-VI-i (Aeolian closed loop), i-iv-VII-III (Minor circle), i-iv-v (Pure minor cadence), i-v-VI-VII (Modal-minor lift).

Aeolian / Phrygian. i-VII-VI-V (Andalusian cadence).

Phrygian. bII-i (Two-chord Phrygian), i-bII-VII-VI (Phrygian descent), i-bII-i (Phrygian collapse).

Harmonic minor. i-iv-V (Harmonic minor cadence), iv-V-i (Authentic minor cadence).

A Perfect Circle pilot

Songs charted so far for APC: 3 Libras, Judith, Sleeping Beauty, The Noose, Weak and Powerless.

The most-used progressions across the APC pilot:

What the patterns are telling me

Weak and Powerless is the clearest Phrygian fingerprint. The pre-chorus parks on bII-i-bII-i in D minor, the half-step approach from Eb back to Dm. The bridge starts on bII (Eb), descends through VI (Bb) and III (F), lands on i (Dm). The outro alternates i-bII-i-bII. Of the 24 chords in the chart, eight live on Eb. That is a third of the song built on the Neapolitan.

3 Libras runs a guitar arpeggio over a constant i pedal. The intro, verse, and outro all spell out F#m-A-D-A, which reads as i-III-VI-III. The chord changes are texture, not motion. The bridge breaks pattern with Bm-A-F#m-D for one section before the outro returns to the pedal.

Sleeping Beauty earns the chorus with a deceptive minor move. Verse runs i-VI-iv-VII (F#m-D-Bm-E), which lands on VII expecting a return to i. The chorus side-steps to A-E-F#m-D, pivoting on the relative major before resolving back. This is the Mer de Noms move the analysis doc calls Sleeping Beauty / Thomas territory.

What comes next

Hooray for Earth and Shiner get charted next. Once they land, the comparison gets interesting. Hooray's Mixolydian I-bVII-IV in major should be the inverse of Shiner's Aeolian dive into i-VII-VI-V. Life and Times is built on i-iv-VII-III, the minor circle, which is APC's i-VI-III-VII rotated by two. If three bands share that rotation, that is a vocabulary I want to own as a writer.

The five-band index gets built one song at a time. The dashboard lives locally for now; this post is the public reference of where things stand.