What is the most common chord progression? We counted
We counted keys, tempos, chords and chord loops across the songs people run through ChordSonic. The four-chord loop wins clearly — but it's in about one loop-based song in five, not every song.
"What is the most common chord progression?" has a stock answer — the "four chords of pop", I–V–vi–IV — and a stock exaggeration attached to it, that it's in nearly every song. We have our own database of automatically detected chord charts, so we counted.
Every song in this study went through the same automatic analysis: chords with their timings, the key, and the tempo. This page covers every song analysed since late August 2026 and is updated as each month's data comes in. For a single month, see the monthly editions of ChordSonic Charts — the latest is September 2026.
The short version
- I–V–vi–IV is the most common chord progression, counting its rotations. Among songs that repeat a clean four-chord loop, about 21% use it — between two and three times as many as the runner-up, I–vi–IV–V (8%).
- It is not in every song. Its four chords pass by in that order in about 21% of all songs and form a repeated loop in about 7%.
- The palette is close to universal; the order isn't. In major-key songs, I, IV, V and vi cover 76% of all chord time.
- G major is the most common key (9%), then C major and D major (7% each).
- Median tempo: 124 BPM. Half of all songs sit between 108 and 139 BPM.
What's in the sample — and what isn't
The sample is the songs people uploaded to ChordSonic for analysis since late August 2026. We started from every analysis in the database and removed anything that would double-count or isn't somebody's music:
- AI tracks from our own generator, and analyses run on them. They would hand our own musical habits back to us as data.
- Analyses of a single stem (a bass line or a guitar part on its own) and re-runs of a song that had already been analysed.
- Repeat uploads of the same audio — by the same person, or identical files from different people.
- Our own test uploads.
Three caveats that matter more than any single number:
- This is not the charts. It's what people chose to upload: songs they want to learn, cover, transcribe or practise over. That leans towards guitar and piano material, and includes some AI-generated songs made elsewhere. A sample of radio hits would look different.
- Everything is automatic. Chords, key and tempo come from software, not from a musician transcribing by ear. Chord detection is good but not perfect; the errors mostly blur results rather than invent patterns, but they are there.
- The study reports shares only. We don't name any song in the sample and never will.
All shares on this page are rounded to whole percentages.
The most common chord progressions
To compare songs in different keys, every chord is written as a Roman numeral relative to the song's key — I is the home chord, V the chord on the fifth note, lowercase vi a minor chord on the sixth, and so on. If that's new, our explainer on chord progressions covers it in a few minutes.
Before counting, we cleaned each chart the way a musician would read it:
- chords shorter than one beat were dropped as passing noise;
- sevenths were folded into their basic chord (G7 counts as G, Am7 as Am);
- a chord repeated back-to-back counts once (C C G becomes C G);
- songs in a minor key were read from their relative major, so Am–F–C–G counts as vi–IV–I–V whether the detector called the key A minor or C major.
Then we looked for loops: four different chords played in order and then played again straight away. That is the strict reading of "this song is built on that progression". About a third of the songs with enough chords to count contain a clean repeated four-chord loop — the rest either move through their harmony without a fixed cycle, or the detector's occasional slips break the exact repetition.
Loops that are the same chords started from a different point (I–V–vi–IV and vi–IV–I–V, say) are counted together.
| # | Progression (in C) | Roman numerals | Share of songs with a four-chord loop |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | C – G – Am – F | I – V – vi – IV | 21% |
| 2 | C – Am – F – G | I – vi – IV – V | 8% |
| 3 | Am – Dm – G – C | vi – ii – V – I | 5% |
| 4 | F – G – Am – C | IV – V – vi – I | 4% |
| 5 | Am – G – F – C | vi – V – IV – I | 4% |
| 6 | C – F – Am – G | I – IV – vi – V | 3% |
| 7 | C – E – Am – F | I – III – vi – IV | 3% |
| 8 | C – Em – Am – F | I – iii – vi – IV | 2% |
The winner is the one everyone expects, and it wins by a lot. The four chords of pop walks through why this loop works so well.
Second place goes to I–vi–IV–V, the doo-wop progression of the fifties, which is still very much alive. Seventh place is worth a look too: I–III–vi–IV swaps the expected minor iii for a major III (E major in the key of C), a chord that pulls hard towards Am — a small, very common trick for adding drama to a familiar loop.
A looser count
A strict repeated loop is a high bar. A looser question: how many songs pass through these four chords in this order at least once, anywhere?
| Progression family (any rotation) | Share of all songs |
|---|---|
| I – V – vi – IV | 21% |
| I – vi – IV – V | 19% |
| I – IV – V – vi | 15% |
| vi – ii – V – I | 14% |
| vi – V – IV – I | 14% |
| ii – V – I – IV | 14% |
Songs with at least four chords. One song can count towards several rows.
On this measure the field is much closer, because these progressions share most of their chords: any song that lives on I, IV, V and vi will brush past several of them. The ranking at the top doesn't change.
Three-chord loops
Plenty of songs loop just three chords: about half of the songs we could count contain a three-chord loop played twice in a row. The most common ones, with how they read in a minor key:
| Loop (major reading) | In C / A minor | Minor-key reading | Share of songs with a three-chord loop |
|---|---|---|---|
| IV – V – vi | F – G – Am | ♭VI – ♭VII – i | 11% |
| I – IV – V | C – F – G | ♭III – ♭VI – ♭VII | 11% |
| I – V – IV | C – G – F | ♭III – ♭VII – ♭VI | 10% |
| vi – IV – I | Am – F – C | i – ♭VI – ♭III | 7% |
| vi – V – IV | Am – G – F | i – ♭VII – ♭VI | 7% |
| ii – III – vi | Dm – E – Am | iv – V – i | 7% |
| I – V – vi | C – G – Am | ♭III – ♭VII – i | 6% |
| ii – V – I | Dm – G – C | iv – ♭VII – ♭III | 3% |
The top three are effectively tied. Two of them are the good old I–IV–V run in opposite directions — up (C–F–G) and back down (C–G–F, the rock move of falling from V to IV) — and counted together they are the most common three-chord family, narrowly ahead of the next one. That next one is the minor-key workhorse ♭VI – ♭VII – i (F–G–Am in A minor), the rising "epic" loop. And iv – V – i (Dm–E–Am) is the classic minor cadence with a major V — the sound of a song that is unmistakably minor.
The chords that do most of the work
Looking at total chord time rather than loops, major-key songs are dominated by four chords:
| Chord in a major key | Share of chord time |
|---|---|
| I | 29% |
| IV | 19% |
| V | 15% |
| vi | 13% |
| ii | 6% |
| iii | 4% |
| ♭VII | 3% |
| everything else | 12% |
Songs detected in a major key. Rounded shares may not add up to exactly 100%.
I, IV, V and vi together take 76% of the time. The median major-key song spends about 80% of its chord time on those four, and nearly nine in ten spend at least half. That is the real sense in which "it's all four chords": the palette is shared almost everywhere, while any particular order is in a minority of songs. The ♭VII — B♭ in the key of C, the rock and Beatles favourite — is the most common chord from outside the key.
Minor-key songs are a little more spread out:
| Chord in a minor key | Share of chord time |
|---|---|
| i | 33% |
| ♭VI | 14% |
| iv | 13% |
| ♭VII | 9% |
| V (major) | 8% |
| ♭III | 6% |
| I (major tonic) | 4% |
| v (minor) | 4% |
| everything else | 9% |
Songs detected in a minor key.
The ♭VI (F in A minor) does more work than the iv, and the major V (E major in A minor, borrowed from the harmonic minor) is far more common than the "natural" minor v — songwriters want the pull back to the tonic.
By chord type, plain major chords take 54% of chord time and plain minor chords 27%; minor sevenths 8%, dominant sevenths 6%, major sevenths 3%. Suspended, diminished and augmented chords together are about 2%.
The most common keys
| # | Key | Share of songs |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | G major | 9% |
| 2 | C major | 7% |
| 3 | D major | 7% |
| 4 | B♭ major | 6% |
| 5 | E major | 6% |
| 6 | E♭ major | 5% |
| 7 | A major | 5% |
| 8 | B major | 5% |
| 9 | F major | 5% |
| 10 | D minor | 4% |
| 11 | E minor | 4% |
| 12 | A minor | 4% |
The remaining keys hold roughly 2–4% each; the rarest, at about 2% each, were C♯ minor, B♭ minor, F minor and F♯ minor.
The guitar's home keys — G, D, C, E, A — are all near the top, which is no surprise for a sample that leans towards guitar players. More interesting are B♭ and E♭ major, level with or ahead of A major. These are the keys of horn sections and piano ballads, but also of guitar bands that tune down a half step, which turns an E-shaped song into E♭.
Telling a major key from its relative minor (C major from A minor, say) is the call automatic key detection finds hardest, because the two share every note. Why key detection fails goes into the reasons. If you need the key of a specific song, check it with the key finder and then trust your ears on major vs relative minor.
Counting only the home note, ignoring major and minor: G and D about 12% each, C and E about 10%, A 9%, down to F♯/G♭ at about 5%.
The most common tempos
| Tempo band | Share of songs |
|---|---|
| under 90 BPM | 6% |
| 90–100 BPM | 11% |
| 100–110 BPM | 11% |
| 110–120 BPM | 15% |
| 120–130 BPM | 19% |
| 130–140 BPM | 15% |
| 140–150 BPM | 10% |
| 150–160 BPM | 7% |
| 160 BPM and up | 7% |
Median 124 BPM; middle half 108–139 BPM; the median song is a little over three minutes long.
The median tempo is 124 BPM, and the 120–130 band is the busiest. Major- and minor-key songs barely differ (125 vs 123 BPM median).
One honest limitation: tempo detectors, ours included, sometimes hear a slow song at double speed or a fast one at half speed. That pushes some ballads into the 130s and some fast punk into the 80s, which is why the under-90 band looks so thin. For one song, the BPM finder gives you a reading and tap tempo lets you check it by hand; our guide to finding the BPM of a song explains the double-time trap.
What this means if you play or write
- Learn I, IV, V and vi in a few keys first. They cover three-quarters of what you'll play in major-key songs. G, D, C, E and A major, plus B♭ and E♭ major if you play with horns or keys, account for 45% of our sample on their own. The circle of fifths shows how the keys and their chords relate.
- Know the four-chord loop in all four rotations. I–V–vi–IV, vi–IV–I–V, IV–I–V–vi and V–vi–IV–I are the same loop and the most common one by far. Spotting it by ear saves you working out every chord of a new song.
- Add the "colour" chords next. ♭VII in major keys, the major V and ♭VI in minor keys, and the major III before vi are the most common steps outside the basic palette.
- To write something that doesn't sound like everything else, the data suggests changing the order, not the chords: ii, iii and ♭VII are all common enough to sound natural and rare enough to sound fresh. Try sequences in the chord progression generator and hear them in the chord player.
If you'd rather check a song than a statistic, upload it and you'll get the full chord chart, key and tempo — or go straight to the guitar, piano or ukulele chord finder.
Monthly editions
Each month gets its own short edition with that month's champions — the top loop, key, tempo and chord — and a note on anything that moved by more than the noise:
Method, in one paragraph
Songs uploaded for analysis since late August 2026, after removing our own generated tracks, stem-only analyses, re-runs, repeat uploads of the same audio and internal test files. Chords, key and tempo were detected automatically by the same analysis for every song. For progressions, chords shorter than one beat were dropped, sevenths folded into triads, suspended and power chords set aside, consecutive repeats collapsed, and minor-key songs read in their relative major. A "loop" means the same distinct chords played twice in a row; rotations of one loop are counted together. Shares of songs count each song once, however many times a progression occurs in it, and are rounded to whole percentages. We re-count this page as each month's data comes in.
Frequently asked
What is the most common chord progression?
In our data it is I–V–vi–IV — C, G, Am, F in the key of C — counted together with its rotations (vi–IV–I–V, IV–I–V–vi, V–vi–IV–I), which are the same four chords looped from a different starting point. Among songs that repeat a clean four-chord loop, about 21% use this one. The next most common, I–vi–IV–V (the doo-wop loop), is at about 8%.
Is I–V–vi–IV really in most pop songs?
Not in our sample. It is the single most common loop, by a wide margin, but its four chords pass by in that order in about 21% of songs and form a repeated loop in about 7%. What is close to universal is the chord palette rather than the order: in major-key songs, I, IV, V and vi together cover 76% of all chord time, and about half of major-key songs spend 80% or more of their time on those four chords.
What is the most common key for songs?
G major, at about 9% of songs, followed by C major and D major (about 7% each). The guitar-friendly keys of G, D, C, E and A sit near the top, but B♭ major and E♭ major are close behind. Counting the home note only, across major and minor, G and D lead (about 12% each) and F♯/G♭ is the least common (about 5%).
What is the most common tempo for a song?
The median tempo in our sample is 124 BPM, and half of all songs fall between 108 and 139 BPM. The busiest ten-BPM band is 120–130 BPM, with about 19% of songs. Automatic tempo detection can read a slow song at double speed or a fast one at half speed, which blurs the two ends of the range.
Which songs are included in the study?
Songs people uploaded to ChordSonic for analysis. We leave out music generated by our own track generator, analyses of single stems, re-runs and repeat uploads of the same audio, and our own test files. We don't publish, and never will, which individual songs were in the sample — the study reports shares only.
How often is this updated?
Every month. Each month's songs get their own short edition of ChordSonic Charts, and this page is re-counted over everything analysed since late August 2026.