Passamezzo and Romanesca melodic formula^[1] Play.

The passamezzo antico is a ground bass or chord progression that was popular during the Italian Renaissance and known throughout Europe in the 16th century.^[2] The progression is a variant of the double tonic: its major mode variant is known as the passamezzo moderno.

The sequence consists of two phrases as follows: (For an explanation of this notation see Chord progression)

i	VII	i	V
III	VII	i V	i

Though usually in the key of G minor,^[1] in the key of A minor this gives:

Am	G	Am	E
C	G	Am E	Am

The romanesca is a variant of the passamezzo antico, where the first chord is the III (e.g., a C major chord in A minor). A famous example is "Greensleeves".

The passamezzo antico chord changes are found, knowingly or not, in modern popular music culture: Carrie Underwood's debut album Some Hearts has two examples, "Before He Cheats" (a big U.S. hit in 2006) and "Starts with Goodbye".

Sources

^ ^a ^b Apel, Willi (1997). The History of Keyboard Music to 1700, p.263. Trans. Tischler, Hans. ISBN 0-253-21141-7.
^ van der Merwe, Peter. 1989. Origins of the Popular Style: The Antecedents of Twentieth-Century Popular Music, p.207. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-316121-4.

Chord progressions

Terminology

By number
of chords

Three	I–IV–V–I ii–V–I turnaround V–IV–I turnaround ♭VII–V⁷ cadence Backdoor progression Eight-bar blues Twelve-bar blues ("Bird" changes) Sixteen-bar blues Passamezzo moderno
Four	'50s progression Andalusian cadence Folía vi–ii–V–I Montgomery-Ward bridge Passamezzo antico I–V–vi–IV (list) IV^△7–V⁷–iii⁷–vi Romanesca Tadd Dameron turnaround

By name