Chord Progression

979 Words2 Pages

Hello, Everyone. Today, I am going to break down a jazz song called ‘For tomorrow’ by Mccoy Tyner and see what techniques we can steal from it. Also, to support the explanation of the song’s features, I would like to explain some of my understanding of Chord Progression.
So the main questions I want to focus today are
-What is Chord Progression?
-What is 2-5-1 movements and how we use them?
-What is chromatic movements?
The first question ‘What is Chord Progression?’
Well, it’s a set of several chords for sure. Although, definitely there are some basic concepts that can be followed, or at least I follow.(next slide)
So my understanding of chord progression is ‘walking back and forth between home and away’.
There are chords that feel very comfortable …show more content…

(next slide)
E♭ and Cm are ‘Home’
Fm and A♭ are ‘Uncomfortable’ B♭and Gm are ‘Away’ and Ddim is an exceptional chords that we won’t use often.
By the way, I categorised the chords in three types. However, each chord has slightly differences too.
Fm and A♭for an example, this two chords are both ‘uncomfortable chords’ but A♭ has one common note with E♭,which is ‘comfortable’ chord. Therefore, A♭ is less uncomfortable than Fm.
I also labeled with numbers so that we can apply this method in any key.
(1,4,5,1 in any key. 6,2,5,1 in any key)
...so 6,2,5,1 in key of C is Am, Dm, G7, C.
Second Question ‘What is 2-5-1 chord progression?’
As I showed those examples, There are so many patterns of chord progressions but I want to focus on 2-5-1 chord progression.
I think 2-5-1 chord progression is one of the most frequently used chords in jazz music. This movements have really strong power to ‘bring back the home’ even key changes …show more content…

He specifically chose to play m7th harmony and 3rd of the chord alternately, which make chromatic movement as the result. He also emphasised this 4 notes with the vocal chambers. This supports and smoothen the 2 bars of rapid modulation.

This chromatic movement is a very complicated pattern to use because the chromatic movement occurs in the midst of chords. Chromatic movement can also be used while the bass stays the same. (next slide) This C for the example, the bass note of C stays the same but G (the 5th) move chromatically. (and if we take this C7 as an ‘away chord’ of F, the C7 can be solved naturally.)
On the other hand, the bass can move chromatically too like the example below.
To summarise today’s tips,
Chord progression can be explained as balancing the comfortable ‘home’ and uncomfortable ‘away’.
2-5-1 chord progression is one of the most common used chord progression in jazz to solve the key. This movement can be used to lead any key that we want.
Lastly, chromatic movements also supports chord works; it can be used while the bass stays the same, or the bass can move chromatically, or it can occur in the midst of the chord works like McCoy’s

Open Document