Guitar chords in the key of C major

The seven chords of C major are C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim. Each one has a job in the key, and each tends towards particular chords next.

• C, the tonic of C major. Usually goes to F or G: the first move away from home, and the one that does not raise the stakes. The chord a phrase begins and ends on, and the one everything else is measured against. Played plain it is the version that leaves the colouring to the melody and the bass, which is why a folk or rock arrangement of a tune uses the triad where a jazz chart writes Imaj7 or I6/9.
• Dm, the supertonic of C major. Usually goes to G: roots falling a fifth, the strongest root motion the key has. Used immediately in front of the dominant and hardly anywhere else: ii–V–I with plain triads is the cadence of a hymn or a classical phrase, where a jazz chart would write ii7–V7–Imaj7 and mean the same three chords.
• Em, the mediant of C major. Usually goes to Am: roots falling a fifth, and vi is where iii most often lands. It contains the key's leading tone, so it leans towards the tonic. The least used of the seven, and mostly used in passing: between I and IV, or under a melody where I would be too plain and vi too final. As a destination it rarely convinces, which is why the version that does get used is the major one, III, borrowed as the dominant of vi.
• F, the subdominant of C major. Usually goes to G: subdominant into dominant: the standard approach to a cadence. Used two ways, and both are everywhere: as the departure before the dominant (IV–V–I), and as a complete phrase on its own with the tonic (I–IV–I, the plagal "amen"), which needs no dominant and so ends without tension.
• G, the dominant of C major. Usually goes to C: the tritone resolves: the leading tone rises, the seventh falls, and the phrase is over. It contains the key's leading tone, so it leans towards the tonic. Nearly always followed by the tonic or by vi; anything else is a deliberate refusal. Without the 7th the pull is a suggestion rather than an insistence, which is exactly why hymns, folk tunes and most rock use the plain triad here and jazz almost never does.
• Am, the submediant of C major. Usually goes to Dm or G: roots falling a fifth, straight into the standard approach to V. Used as the tonic's substitute and as the key's minor colour: the chord a deceptive cadence lands on, and the chord a whole section of a major-key song can be built on without any modulation happening at all.
• Bdim, the leading-tone chord of C major. Usually goes to C: it is V7 without its root, so it wants the tonic just as badly. The ♭5 puts a tritone inside the chord itself, so it cannot be sat on: it is heard as tension wherever it stands, and it is used on the way to something rather than as a place to arrive. It holds B and F, the tritone out of V7, so it carries the dominant's tension wherever it sits. It contains the key's leading tone, so it leans towards the tonic. Rarely played in root position at all. Its normal appearance is with the 3rd in the bass, as a passing chord between the tonic and the tonic in first inversion -- a dominant that is never allowed to become a cadence.

Where a chord tends to go follows Walter Piston’s table of usual root progressions in Harmony (W. W. Norton); see the sources.