Better Guitar Intro Ideas - Using Guitar Chord Progressions for Songs (Set Up the Singer)
► Watch the full lesson on YouTube
The best intros aren't about showing off — they grab the listener and set the singer up to shine. This lesson builds an intro from a single idea, the leading tone, into a classic progression you've heard in hundreds of songs, with ways to add color or take it into jazz.
What you'll learn
- An intro's job is to establish key, tempo and feel — and set up the singer
- The leading tone (the 7th of the scale) lives in the V chord and pulls to I
- Build a 1-6-4-5 progression — the classic hit formula
- Add color, go jazzy with 1-6-2-5, or use dominant 7ths for more pull
What an intro is really for
If you have a singer, the purpose of the introduction is to let them get adjusted to the key, the tempo, and the feel before they come in — so it isn't just "ready, go" with everyone starting cold at once. Once you've established that, you want a way to set up the key.
The leading tone and the V to I resolution
Listen to a major scale — do re mi fa so la ti do. If you stop on the ti, the seventh note, it doesn't feel complete; you have to hear it resolve. That leading tone happens to live inside the V chord of the key — in the key of C, that's the G7.
So the best way to lead a listener to the I chord is to precede it with the V chord. Once they hear the V, they're expecting the I. That's the "five-one" resolution.
Building the 1-6-4-5 progression
An intro is typically two to four measures, sometimes longer. Start on the I chord — in the key of C, a C chord. Rather than jumping straight to the V, go to the relative minor of C, which is A minor, then to the IV chord (F), then the V (G), and finally home to C.
That progression is 1 to the 6-minor to the 4 to the 5, and you've heard it in countless songs — Adam jokes that every decade has had a hit built on 1-6-4-5.
Ready to take this further? Best Minor Pentatonic Course
Turn scales into solos that actually sing.
Adding color and going jazzy
Once you have the bones, add color to the chords. Instead of a plain C you might play a C add-2 (adding a D on the B string), then an A minor 7, an F major 7, and a G-sus sound that resolves home.
To take it into jazz territory, swap the IV chord for its relative minor, D minor, giving you a 1-6-2-5 with richer voicings like an A minor 9. It's still the same underlying movement, just dressed up.
Dominant 7ths, and using it as an outro
Turning chords into dominant sevenths gives you more pull into the next chord. Starting on C, use A7 instead of A minor, and D7 instead of D minor, then move to the G and arrive on C — so everyone comes in on the right key.
The same idea works at the end of a tune: under the singer's final note you can run the same kind of resolution as an outro, landing everyone home.
