page_title: '50s progression
section_title: Examples in classical music
hierarchical_section_title: '50s progression / Examples in classical music
caption_attribution_description: English: Mozart Piano Concerto K482, opening bars
context_page_description: The '50s progression is a chord progression and turnaround used in Western popular music. The progression, represented in Roman numeral analysis, is: I–vi–IV–V. For example, in C major: C–Am–F–G. As the name implies, it was common in the 1950s and early 1960s and is particularly associated with doo-wop.
  It has also been called the "Heart and Soul" chords, the "Stand by Me" changes, the doo-wop progression and the "ice cream changes". The first song to use the sequence extensively might have been "Blue Moon", written in 1933 by Richard Rodgers, and first released, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart, in 1934.
context_section_description: Instances of the I-vi-IV-V progression date back to the 17th century, for example, the ostinato bass line of Dieterich Buxtehude's setting of Psalm 42, Quem admodum desiderat cervus, BuxWV 92: 
  
  The opening of J. S. Bach's Cantata "Wachet Auf":
  
  The progression is found frequently in works by Mozart, such as his A minor Piano Sonata:
  
  The opening of his Piano Concerto 22, K482 extends the progression in a particularly subtle way, making use of suspensions:
   Eric Blom (1935, p. 227) hears this passage as "the height of cunning contrivance resulting in what is apparently quite simple and obvious, but what could have occurred to nobody else."
caption: Mozart Piano Concerto K482, opening bars
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