Chords and Songs.

a chord progression is any sequence of chords that are played. Often, songs will feature one or more repeated chord progressions. There's no right or wrong here, you can choose any chords and any number of chords for a progression.

So, all of these are chord progressions.....

|C|G|

|Dm|G|C|

|Bb|F|C|Bb|

|C|Am|G|Em|F|Fm|C|G|C|

As for writing, I write in many different ways. If I've got an idea for a melody or a mood, I'll try out various chords and see how they fit with that melody/mood. Other times, I'll be messing around on my guitar and stumble across a group of chords that sound good together and suggest a melody to me (i.e. a bunch of chords that just make me want to write lyrics for them). All of this is done by trial and error, but the more you play guitar the less errors you'll make. Then it becomes more deliberate - you can tell which chords you're gonna use before you try finding them on the guitar.

There are a thousand and one ways to write songs, though. And you might have one part (lyrics, riff, chords, whatever) and find in the course of adding other elements to the song, that your original idea mutates to fit the stuff you've added.

hth

So for chord progressions you just pick some chords to use for the song, and you might progress from each chord in the same or different order throughout the whole song? is that what that whole I-IV-V stuff is?

hmmmm.

And what about songs in the Key of something. Like the key of E and such? Does that help you make a song basing it off what key it will be in?

Right now its going to be more of a acoustic punk song, made up of different chords and such.

you could start writing a tune by choosing the key it will be in, and you can get a 'list of possible chords' this way. but if you're unsure about what a chord progression is, there's little point in considering keys and the chords you can find in various keys - it''ll just result in information overload, in my opinion.

besides which, you don't need to choose a key when you start writing a tune - just trust your ears and mess around trying different chords and see how they sound when you put them together in a chord progression. that's how most people who write do it, at least when they're just starting out. choosing a key can both aid you and hinder you. for now, I'd say ignore keys. do you practise scales at all (e.g. a C major scale, a G major scale, etc)? If not, then you should start doing this before looking into how keys work and how chords relate to keys.

yup, "that I-VI-V stuff" is a chord progression. the songs you've been learning, look at the chords you play for each song you've learned. each of those is a chord progression. 'chord progression' just refers to any sequence of chords. it can be a small sequence (like two chord |C|G| example I posted above) or a big progression (like the last one I posted), or a medium sized progression.

hth

using I IV V in the key of E you would play E then A then B. classic stuff.
then there is another classic run: C Am F G.
I love playing Gloria...and faster the better E D A.

go on line and search for Circle of Fifths. you should get a circle chart showing you the chords and relationships, mess around with those and listen to how the notes move around.

Some progressions which always work -

1. C F G

2. C G F

3. D A G

4. Em D C

5. E A B

6. Am G F

Endless P&C with the basic open major and minor chords. And they sound really good when played in order.