Skip to content
Chord & Fret

Forró · vamp nordestino — Ukulele

What is the Forró · vamp nordestino progression?

The Forró · vamp nordestino progression is A → G (I – bVII), in the key of A. Read as harmonic function it moves tonic → dominant, arriving home on a cadence. Play one chord per bar and let it loop.

Play any song you love and it does this: leaves home, takes a walk, and at the right moment somebody yells "come back!". This progression is that route, road sign by road sign: A (I, home) → G (bVII, time to come back). Hit play and follow with your finger on the names — when you reach the chord marked "time to come back", notice your own body waiting for A — the home chord.

Ukulele

Its fourth string is tuned higher than you would expect, so a chord's notes bunch close together instead of spreading from low to high, giving that clear, chiming sound. Brazilian styles are not the ukulele's home turf: it can carry a gentle bossa nova, but the percussive drive of samba, choro and pagode asks for more bite and low-end punch than its soft nylon strings can give. Its home chord A keeps its lowest note on C# and rings 2 open strings.

Cadences — Harmony comes to rest here — hear every cadence type and train your ear · open in Chord & Fret

Save this progression in Chord & Fret

Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · use it in Chord & Fret

Learn each chord of the trip

A · G

A, 2 1 0 0A21AC#EA

This is one shape of A. In Chord & Fret, you open every position of all 2 chords in this progression along the neck — on any instrument, and hear each one. Open in Chord & Fret →

Metronome — Drill this change in time, with tap tempo and subdivisions · try it in Chord & Fret

Want to change keys without redoing any of this? In the Chord & Fret app you drag and the whole neck rewrites itself — it's on the app stores.