The Sensitive Female Chord Progression

FL Studio tutorial explaining the Sensitive Female Chord Progression.

Ever heard of the Sensitive Female Chord Progression? The Sensitive Female Chord Progression (SFCP) is a chord progression that starts with the minor six (vi) and then moves to the major four (IV), the major one (I) and the major five (V). For example, the progression in C-major would be:

You probably wonder, why on earth dedicate an entire article to a single chord progression? Good question. I just find the name intriguing and did some research. Now I simply want to share on Forbidden Fruity what I have learned.

The progression was noticed in a number of songs by Boston Globe columnist Marc Hirsh. He named it SFCP because he claimed it was used by many members of the Lilith Fair – a traveling music festival with solely female solo artists and female-led bands. Now, the progression is quite popular (one of the most common in pop and rock music today) and not only used by (sensitive) females - also angry old men use it. If you want to see a list with artists who use it, see http://sixfouronefive.blogspot.com/2009/01/song-list.html

Basshunters "All I Ever Wanted" is also on the list. I wrote about this song and the chord progression used in it in this tutorial: Composing chord progressions (like Basshunter)

In that FL Studio tutorial you can see the following progression (based on E-major):

Indeed, this progression starts with a minor six (vi) and the moves to the major four (IV), the major one (I) and the major five (V).

For fun, I created a small intro (far from complete, so bear with me) that uses the Am, F, C, G progression. You can listen to it using the player below. You’ll clearly hear the progression 40 secs into the song.

Note that the progression uses chord inversions to make the chord transitions as smooth as possible. I’ll not explain about chord inversions here, but you can download the MIDI file of the progression via the link below. Simply import it into your project (File | Import | MIDI file) and voila, you can have some fun with it!

Category: Arranging/Composing, feature, FL Studio Tutorial