Piano Progression

[Jacinda Saleeby]

Afterthe primary chords, the next chord to familiarize yourself with is the minor vi. This is the diatonic chord built on top of the sixth note of the scale. Thanks to its minor sound, it adds some much needed color to the primary chords. Think of it as green or orange!

The Andalusian Cadence is named after the Andalusia region in Spain, where it was used in flamenco music. In A minor, this dramatic minor progression contains the following chords: Am-G-F-E. Notice that we raise the seventh note (G to G#) on the E chord. This raised seventh adds that distinct Spanish flavor.

Using passing chords is a more advanced technique to make your piano chord progressions sound even more sophisticated. A passing chord is simply a transition chord between two chords of a progression.

When it comes to piano chord progressions, there is no right or wrong. Pick a key, identify your diatonic chords, and mix and match them to create a chord progression of your own. Then, toss in some chord alterations and passing chords to spice things up.

I'm looking to improvise a piano solo in over a C# verse that has a C#, B, A chorus. I'm unsure of what scale to use for this, or unsure on how to determine why musically some notes work better than others for this progression.

Major/Minor: The normal approach is to identify the song's key by comparing the chords. This is typically done by identifying a I-IV-V or ii-V-I relationship within the song. Unfortunately, we don't have such a clean relationship here. If the C# was minor, we can make a strong argument for C# minor or E major (VI-VII-i or IV-V-vi respectively). But that C# major is a little confusing. It could be a borrowed chord, possibly a VI major? Most likely that is not the case, as we don't have a clear tonic (I chord, or E major in this case). It seems that our normal major/minor 7 tone scales aren't going to help us here.

Pentatonic scales can be really helpful in situations like this. In this case, the F# minor pentatonic has no notes that are outside all three chords. Win! You can play F# minor pentatonic to your hearts delight and it won't be strongly dissonant.

A more mature approach would be to switch between scales for each chord. Just play the major scale for the chord being played. When the chord changes, change the scale you are using. A foundational concept in jazz theory is that a 'key' and a 'chord' are really the same thing. All notes within the C# major scale are 'in' while C# major is being played.

The answer above focuses on identifying the notes that you shouldn't play. The accomplished improvisor focuses on the notes they should play, not the notes to be avoided. Some notes are far more powerful than others, and great improvisors invest in building up and resolving to these notes. So many great solos are simply finding interesting ways to move from one interesting note to another. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what those notes are without hearing the music. But here are some principles that will help:

Know your tonic. This is your home base. What is the foundation of the scale? Does tonic change with the chord progression, or does it stay the same on each chord? As we discussed above, the song could be in E major with a VI major. Does E sound like home base on each chord?

Know your style. In most forms of jazz, the most important notes are the 3 and 7. Western swing and rockabilly really enjoys playing between the 5 and 6. Blues wants b3's and b7's. The style of music provides a great starting point for which notes are going to be the most important.

Know your voicings. Understand how the chords are being played within the arrangement. Are they playing major chords in root position? Is everyone playing the 3 in each chord? Or are they emphasizing the 1 and 5 and almost ignoring the 3? How the harmony is built is going to place strong emphasis on specific notes for each chord. Maybe the 3 is not emphasized on the C# and it has no 7, while the A has a very strong 3 and a major 7?Listen to what's happening and figure out if you want to play within the structure or push against it by emphasizing other notes.

One is to play some type of C# major scale (either major or mixolydian) over it. The other would be to play the C# minor scale over it but avoid the minor 3rd of it. Yet another is to use a slightly altered version of the C# minor scale for the C# chord where the third is major instead of minor.

When you wrote C#, by convention, you wrote C# major. And so in C#, the B and A chords are altered. The B and A chords do fit diatonically in C# minor. So you do have some interesting things you can do with this. It might help not to think so much of scales, but rather, neighbor notes and the possibilities you now have. This is especially true for the A chord, as it returns to C#:

To go even further (and to very directly answer your question), this would probably be called a blend between C# major and C# minor. Although it could fit in with E major, if the vi chord was considered altered to VI, or F# major, with its iii altered to III. And these aren't the only possibilities, since we're definitely dealing with altered chords!

(My confusion: if it is Cm, then the sharps and flats are different, but it almost "feels" that it's in Dm because it seems to resolve to Dm. But again the C blues scale seems to work on the right hand...!)

There is no theory to tell you which key you're in. Different people can hear the same chord progression in different ways. Of course there are very clear cases of chord progressions, but yours is not one of them. The notes of these four chords are not from only one scale. This doesn't mean that there is no key, it just means that things could get ambiguous.

You feel that at the end it resolves to Dm, but that's simply because you have a (secondary) dominant right before it (A is the dominant of Dm). When I play the progression I hear it in G minor. I hear Cm as a iv chord, A as a secondary dominant, and Dm (or D) as the v (V) in G minor. Another hint that it might be in G minor is that you sometimes switch to D major instead of D minor. The latter is a characteristic of minor, namely that its V (or v) chord can be either major or minor (because there are three minor scales, and a piece in minor can make use of all of them).

But again, nobody can tell you what you hear as the root chord in this progression. Since there is no single scale really fitting all four chords, even for improvising it's not important to know the key. It's much more important to know the chords and the chord tones. You could start by a chord tone solo (i.e. a melody only consisting of chord tones), and then you can become a bit more experimental and try other notes connecting the chord tones.

The Roman numeral version is an abstraction of the chord progression that can be played in any key. You can choose to start that chord progression on any note (in this example, you chose a C), and you will have the same effect in terms of how the intervals are related to each other. So you could start on a G (still i), or a G# (still i), or an Ab (still i, and yes, those last two are the same). What those Roman numerals are telling you is how to form the chords based on whatever note you are starting on--if C is i, then you are in the key of c as that is your tonic.

Basically, you're conflating the pitch names (C, G, F, D) with the Roman numeral chord symbols (i, iv, v, ii), which are two different systems. A C is always a C on the piano. A i depends on where you choose to place it; in the key of c it's a i; in the key of g, it's also i.

There are many more rules in Western music about which chords can go where and when, but that is getting into another topic. This is more a question of the style you are playing than what you are talking about in this example.

Duane Shinn (that would be me) has good news for you if you want to play the piano. He (me) has little fat hands & stubby little fingers - not at all suited for playing the piano - more suited to making mud pies or some such. I am also fairly uncoordinated with just average musical ability - certainly not a great piano player. But I've learned a ton about music over the years and people tell me I'm pretty decent at explaining how music works & how to progress more rapidly on the piano. Over the years I have developed about 150 techniques for conquering the piano. Most professional pianists can do these techniques, but very few can explain them in a way people can understand. I specialize in making complex techniques simple. I invite you to watch a few of my free videos and see some of these for yourself before making any decision about taking any of my courses.

The Jobim chord progression includes 3 diatonic 7th chords and 2 chromatic 7th chords. Chromatic chords is a broad term for non-diatonic chords that includes secondary dominants, modal interchange and tritone substitutions. Generally speaking, accidentals are your clue that some form of chromaticism is at work. As you gain experience, try to understand the harmonic function of each chromatic chord. In other words, what makes the chords with accidentals work in a way that sounds pleasing to the ear? That way, you can use your understanding of harmonic function to reharmonize other tunes with chromaticism. Now, here are the 5 chords you need to know for the Jobim progression.

The most intriguing aspect of this progression is the prolonged usage of the dominant 2-chord (II7) in measures 3 and 4. Typically, the 2-chord in a major key is a minor ii7. For example, in C Major, the diatonic 2-chord is Dm7. However, Jobim chooses to use a D7 instead which adds a brightness to the overall texture.

Congratulations! You are well on your way to playing with a Brazilian jazz piano sound. Be sure to download the lesson sheet and backing tracks which appear at the bottom of this page after logging in with your membership. You can also easily transpose this lesson to any key using our Smart Sheet Music.

3a8082e126