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CHORD PROGRESSIONS
PROGRESSION is a series of chords with a harmonic interest.
There are six rules for doing progressions:

Alberto Betancourt (albetan)

Diatonic progressions: 1) Diatonic circle, complete or in fragments. 2) Ascending or descending by grades of scale. Chromatic progressions: 3) Chromatic or perfect circle, complete or in fragments. 4) Descending by half tone or ascending by tone. Substitute or embellishing chords: 5) Jump to a substitute or embellishing chord. Free progression: 6) Jump to any other chord.

1) Diatonic circle, complete or in fragments:

Major diatonic circle:

Primary chords:
Lets see superior section of circle:

Primary chords I, IV V contain all scale sounds and are enough to harmonize a tune. So we have progressions: Imaj7 IV maj7 V7 Imaj7 Imaj7 IV maj7 Imaj7 Imaj7 V7 Imaj7 II precedes V with force So we have progressions: IIm7 V7 I IIm7 V7 VI precedes II with force So we have progressions: VIm7 IIm7 V7 Imaj7 |: I VI II V :| III precedes VI with force So we have progression: IIIm7 VIm7 IIm7 V7 - Imaj7 VII precedes III with force So we have progression: VIIm7-5 IIIm7 VIm7 IIm7 V7 Imaj7 IV precedes VII with force, closing so the major diatonic circle. So we have: Imaj7 IVmaj7 VIIm7b5 IIIm7 VIm7 IIm7 V7 Imaj7

3 EXERCISE:

Practise it in all tonalities. Take care of sharps and flats in each scale.

MINOR DIATONIC CIRCLE

Take a minor chord as a VI of its correlative major chord. Am is minor relative chord of C, and C is major correlative chord of Am. For Am take the C major diatonic circle, and begin from VI grade. Fifth of Am is E7. So we must change IIIm7 by III7. Seventh grade of Am may be G7 or G#o. Sixth grade of Am may be Fmaj7 or F#m7b5.

4 EXERCISE:

Perform it in all tonalities. See file Harmonic Exercise 3 at Albetans Area.

2) Ascending or descending by steps of diatonic scale:

EXAMPLE: Cmaj7 Dm7 Em7 Fo Em7 Dm7

3) Chromatic or perfect circle, complete or in fragments.

If we jump to a perfect fourth upwards or to a fifth downwards and follow until repeat the beginning chord, we have a perfect or chromatic circle.

5 EXERCISE:

Play this exercise until mastering it. See file Harmonic exercise 4 at Albetans Area. At the end of FALLIN GRACE of Steve Swallow, we have an example of fragment in perfect circle:

Fragments may be in different sections of perfect circle:

Notice II V fragments in different sections of circle.

4) Descending by half tone or ascending by tone:

As in: Cmaj7 Dm7 Em7 F#dim F6 E7 Eb9 Dm7 Db9 Cmaj7 EXAMPLE: One Note samba of A. C. Jobim:

Jump to a substitute or embellishing (or ornamental) chord produces a strong progression; also from a substitute or embellishing chord to the real one.

5) Jump to substitute or embellishing chords:

EXAMPLE: C Am6 Jump to subst.

C Em7 to substitute

C Dbmaj7 C to embellishing

C Bb9 C to embellishing

See file Substitute and embellishing chords at Albetans Area Last rule is free progression:

6) Jump to any other chord.

First five rules produce strong progressions. Free progression is weak. A normal process building progressions is to jump from a chord to any other in a free way and following to other steps by one of strong progressions. We feel in a progression a special force as gravity from one to following chord, until coming again to tonic chord. Analyse all progressions in your favorite standards. Good luck and enjoy progressions.