Ep. 8: Chord Progressions(Part 2-With Review)

Podcast Episode Title: Chord Progressions | Unlocking the Secrets of Harmony in Music Theory

In this episode of [Podcast Name], we dive deep into the fascinating world of chord progressions and their pivotal role in music theory. Whether you’re a beginner or an advanced musician, understanding chord progressions is key to unlocking the emotional power of music. We explore the foundational concepts behind major and minor chords, diatonic harmony, and how chord progressions shape the mood and structure of a song.

Join us as we break down the most common chord progressions used in popular and classical music, including the iconic I-IV-V progression and the more complex ii-V-I in jazz theory. You’ll learn how to analyze chord progressions, experiment with different variations, and incorporate them into your own compositions. Plus, we’ll discuss the relationship between scales, modes, and chord choices, giving you a deeper understanding of how to create smooth, compelling musical journeys.

Whether you're a seasoned music theorist, an aspiring composer, or simply a music lover eager to understand the backbone of your favorite songs, this episode will expand your knowledge and fuel your musical creativity. Don't miss out—tune in and start mastering chord progressions today!

Keywords: chord progressions, music theory, musicians, music theory lovers, harmonic analysis, major chords, minor chords, diatonic harmony, scales, modes, jazz theory, I-IV-V, ii-V-I

Chapters

• 0:00 Musical Introduction
• 0:40 Episode 8 Introduction
• 1:35 Recap of Previous Episodes
• 2:13 Knowledge Check : Chords and Chord Progressions
• 3:10 Audio Examples : Random Chords
• 5:42 Knowledge Check : Formula for a Minor Scale
• 6:10 Knowledge Check : How Many Triads Are There?
• 8:06 Knowledge Check : 3 Most Important Roman Numerals
• 8:56 Every Single Melodic Possibility!
• 10:44 Beyond just I-IV-V
• 11:30 The i-vi-iv-v-i Progression in A
• 11:45 Audio Examples - A minor
• 12:32 The I-vi-IV-V-I Progression in C
• 13:06 Audio Examples : I-vi-IV-V-I in C
• 14:19 The i-vi-III-VII-i Progression
• 14:46 Audio Examples : i-vi-III-VII-i
• 15:32 The 'Andalusian' Cadence - i-VII-VI-V7
• 16:51 Audio Example : ' Malaguena '
• 17:34 The i - III - VII - iv - i Progression
• 19:02 Definition : BORROWED CHORD
• 19:39 The i - VII - IV - V - i Progression
• 23:49 Outro/Recap

Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

So,

SPEAKER_01: 0:41

Welcome back! Hello, fellow theory lovers! All the people that listen to my podcast are super nice. Today's episode is a continuation of some exploration we've done in previous episodes about chords and chord progressions. So this is a part two on the concepts of chords and chord progressions. And also I'm going to do a little bit of a review as a carryover from that previous episode, just to make sure everybody's caught up. And also just to reiterate some things, because remember, as a best way to learn music theory and to understand it is to participate in repetitions and to reiterate and to continue to talk about things multiple times rather than just one time. So we're going to start with a little bit of a general overview, and I'm going to pull back to a few definitions to make sure that we're all caught up. So number one, in your own words, in your head, I want you to think about what at this point your definition of a chord is. What is the definition of a chord in your own words? It'll help even more if you say it out loud. Let me give you a few seconds to do that. Everybody got it? All right, so now for my definition of a chord, it is... any three or more notes played simultaneously. And I do mean literally any three or more. You can literally pick three or more random notes on any instrument you want to, stack them on top of each other, and then sound them simultaneously, and you have yourself a chord. So that means this is a chord. That means this is a chord.

UNKNOWN: 3:18

That means this is a chord.

SPEAKER_01: 3:19

This is also a chord This is a chord This is a chord And this is a chord doing this randomly invokes kind of chaotic sounds, right? It's wild, it's barbaric, it's natural, but also it's just very chaotic and unorganized. So of course, we ended up organizing things to our liking. We want things to sound good and be organized to our liking, which is how we got to modern chords and chord progression. So where does our system of chords come from again? A better question might be, where does everything in our Western system of music come from? You guessed it. It always goes back to scales and scale patterns, how they evolved and how they're organized. So, quick recap. We learned what a scale was originally. We learned formulas for major and minor scales. Then after that, we learned that triads were the first formation for harmony in our Western system. and that they were the opposite of random. They were hyper-organized in a way that we use the skipping technique to take scale tones and skip every other note until we have three notes in a triad and use that as a basis for all chords and chord progressions in our system. And then centuries and centuries went by and a bunch of smart people got together and started using Roman numerals to denote or derive what we know as chord progressions. That way we can separate it from the other numbers in the music system, which is basically one of my opinions about why Roman numerals are used, other than the inventors just to prove and show that they're smarter than everybody else. It ended up being a really, really good system that we still use to this day. In the previous episode about chords and chord progressions, we broke down a major key with major progressions. So in honor of equal balance and also my most recent moment, minor episode previous to this one, we are going to start with a breakdown of minor and maybe get to some major chord progressions later. Who remembers the formula based on whole steps and half steps for a minor scale?

SPEAKER_02: 5:49

Whole,

SPEAKER_01: 5:53

half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole. And I'm going to use A minor since it has no sharps and flats and so it would sound like this. Another review question, how many triads can I build in one diatonic key? The answer is seven. We can build one off of each pitch within the scale. So the I chord in A minor is, of course, A minor. The II chord is going to be B diminished. The III chord is C major. The IV chord is D minor. The V chord is E minor. The VI chord is F major. The VII chord is G major. And then we're back to original A minor. And if you recall, breaking down this one minor key in A minor means that you have learned how the triads and chords are lined up in all minor keys. That's right. They all work exactly the same. They're all based from the formula that we talked about previous, whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole. And therefore, all the triads come out exactly the same. So let's reiterate, in minor, the one chord is minor, two chords to make Three is major. Four is minor. Five is minor. Six is major. Seven is major. And then we're back to one, which is minor again. And remember, both major and minor keys have a nice balance to them. Both have three major chords. Both have three minor chords. And both have one diminished chord. But because we're in a different diatonic pattern, they are in a different order. order, which is what makes the keys or the tonalities of minor and major sound different the way they sound. Next review question for the day is, do you remember the three most important Roman numeral numbers when we talk about chord progressions as it pertains to what is the standard of chord progressions in the It's the 1, the 4, and the 5. So whether you're in minor or major, 1, 4, 5 are the three chords in the system that give us the most strong and logical chord progressions. And mostly has to do with the rise and fall of musical tension within chords that create that sort of roller coaster that we call a chord progression, if you remember that from previous. But I will also remind you that every single melodic choice within a key is included in the three triads one four and five so when you use those three chords you have every single melodic possibility within a key let me demonstrate that real quick so again in a minor our one four five would be a minor d minor and e minor so do you remember how those chords are formed from the triad skipping, right? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to outline those to prove to you that you have every melodic possibility. So an A minor chord is built on a I, III, and V, which is A, C, and E. That makes up the A minor chord. The IV chord, the D minor, is based on scale degrees IV, VI, which is F, and I again, which is A. That makes up D minor so four six and one and the five chord which is e minor is based on scale degrees five seven and two So E is five, G is seven, B is two. And when you stack those up, you get the five chord, which is E minor. When you add all those numbers together, you get every single note in the scale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and back to one. So now proven that you have every single melodic possibility within the key right there buried within just the 1-4-5 progression alone. So now it's time to branch off into other chord progressions though. I mean, life would be pretty boring if every single piece of music was a 1-4-5, right? We want to hear some variety and we want to hear the buffet of sonorities in music Oh, I just came up with that. I like that. Generally speaking, chord progressions are going to start and end on the one chord. Think about it like this. A chord progression is a lot like a travel trip, meaning you start from your home base, you travel off to other places in the world and have many adventures, hopefully, and then you eventually make your way back home. That is exactly how a chord progression works. So we're going to start and end on one, and we're going to go through some kind Common chord progression. So let's do it. The very first common chord progression that we're going to study today in minor is... The 1-6-4-5-1 progression. And this chord progression in our key of A minor that we broke down would sound like this. And of course, A minor is 1. F is 6. D minor is 4. E minor is five, and then we're back to one again. So if I put those together, it would more commonly sound like this. Now that may or may not remind you of a song or even a hundred songs, but I'll switch quickly over to major for this one, six, four, five. Let's see what that sounds like. So now I'm going to take the key of C major. Okay. And let's do a 1-6-4-5 in major. The reason I bring this up is because it was very common and very widely used in the 50s in the United States in the realms of rock and roll and pop. You're probably going to think of about 100 songs when you hear this. So let's do the key of C major, 1-6-4-5 progression. One, of course, is going to be C. C. Six is going to be A minor. Four is F. And five is G. So now think of any number of 50s songs that this sounds like. So the 1645 is probably much more recognizable in major. Some of the famous songs that you would have heard of are Heart and Soul, Earth Angel by the Penguins, Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers, Stand By Me by Ben King, and I Will Always Love You by Dolly Parton, which was made famous by the late Whitney Houston. If you remember the movie Bodyguard, oh my goodness, I am totally dating myself on that one our next minor progression to talk about is a one six three seven chord progression this one is very common in pop and rock music and remember this is a minor progression so the one chord's minor the six is major the three is major and the seven is major we're using all three of the major chords in a minor key and that would sound like this Some of the more famous songs you might recognize that use this chord progression are Zombie by the Cranberries Save Tonight by Eagle Eye Cherry Holiday and 21 Guns, both by Green Day. He really liked that progression. And Self-Esteem by The Offspring. And those are just a few famous ones. There are so many more songs that you could look up that I'm not listing here that use that progression, as it is very common. The next minor chord progression we're going to visit is one of the coolest and one of my favorites. And it's called... The Andalusian Cadence. This chord progression is a 1-7-6-5-7 chord progression. That is a minor 1, a major 7, a major 6, and a major 5-7. Does anybody out there remember from previous episodes of minor about how we get a major 5 chord in a minor key? It's when we alter the seventh scale degree in the natural minor scale, raise it up to a sharp seven, which becomes a leading tone, which makes our five chord major and gives us this progression. The Andalusian cadence was named after the area in South Spain called Andalusia, which was the birthplace of flamenco. I'm sure many of you have heard of Malagueña, which is a folk song type within the idiom of flamenco. A malagueña might sound like this. So this chord progression tends to be kind of a representative caricature of Spanish music for a lot of people. But there are actually a lot of pop and rock songs that use this chord progression as well. Hit the Road Jack by Percy Mayfield. That famous tune uses it. Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits. and also Happy Together by the Turtles, just to name a few. The next minor progression that we're going to look into is a minor 1, major 3, major 7, minor 4 progression, and it sounds like this.¦And I would like to note that this chord progression has no V chord in it. We're so used to having a V or hearing a V. And remember, that's because it's like the peak of musical tension within a chord progression that helps us resolve back to the I chord, therefore establishing or re-establishing a key in your ear. But this particular chord progression doesn't really do that. It kind of dances around. Examples of famous songs that use this chord progression are Just Dance by Lady Gaga, SOS by ABBA, and Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode. Now for the next minor chord progression, there is a new concept that we need to learn today, which is called a borrowed chord. A borrowed chord is a chord that is borrowed, in quotes, from the parallel major or minor. If you remember parallel major and minors from my previous episode, basically, if you're in G major, for example, G minor is the parallel minor. If you're in A minor, A major is a parallel major. So same root note, but just flipping from major to minor or minor to major. So to sum up, a borrowed chord is really just a chord that you're borrowing from the parallel major or minor depending which key that you're in and that leads to my next chord progression which is minor one major seven major four which is the borrowed chord and then a major five which is an altered five from harmonic minor i know i know things are getting a little tricky now examples of the minor one major seven major If you feel a little wayward right now with all this, feel free to go back and listen to my episode on minor again, just to understand why minor is so squirrely and kind of elusive and has a bunch of altered chords in it, really just to make chord progressions stronger and Okay, so I would like to finish this study of minor chord progressions by really just getting back to the basics so we can pull it all together. So I'm going to come back and let you hear a comparison between the natural minor 1, minor 4, and minor 5 that naturally happen in what we call natural minor, or now you know the Greek mode, is called Aeolian. And I'm going to compare that to using the altered five that has the leading tone in it that we call harmonic minor. Now, if you recall from the previous episode, harmonic minor stems from the word harmonic or harmony, right? Because we're altering that pitch to change the harmony, which is another word of saying we're changing the chords. So the whole point of changing the seventh scale degree in minor is to give a stronger chord progression. So let's hear a comparison between the two. Let me start with natural minor. All minor chords 1, 4, and 5 would sound like this. Now compare that with the altered V chord that generally gets altered to strengthen the chord progression, where we're going to have a major V now. And that would sound like this. Hear how much stronger that V chord is with tension and release. Now, I know this is review from the previous episode, but I just wanted to end with this because I know I went over a lot of chord progressions, and I just wanted to remind you why minor is just so squirrely and kind of strange. It tends to be a little bit more difficult to write in, I would say, as a composer, and so things get changed and altered to make things more palatable.

SPEAKER_00: 22:42

Damn, Kevin, that's a lot of damn chord progressions, boy. How am I supposed to remember all that?

SPEAKER_01: 22:48

Yeah, that's true. That was a lot of chord progressions. I realize that was a lot of information. The beauty of a podcast is you can always go listen to it again. But what I really hope is that you kind of just explore some of those examples I listed and some of those chord progressions I listed and kind of get familiar with them. I will say this. We're just scratching the surface, right? There are really extended and longer chord progressions that are much more involved. I just didn't want to get into all that yet because we're still building here on the Harmonious Blacksmiths. We're still taking concepts previous and we're still building with our building blocks trying to continue to make this infrastructure grow. And when I do a part three of this in the future, we're going to get to explore key changes and modal chord progressions, a whole But for now, it's time for Breakdown. Today we learned a lot more about chord progressions. But we did start with reviews of triads, chords, chord progressions, and Roman numerals. We learned a new term called borrowed chords and how chords get borrowed from parallel major and minor keys. We did a review of the leading tone and harmonic minor and why alterations are made in minor keys. We broke down a minor key and how the Roman numerals lay out within a minor key. We also went through many chord progressions in minor and a few in major, really too many to list here, but you can always go back and listen again. And I had fun finding all kinds of examples for these chord progressions for you to go out and listen to. Thanks again for tuning in to the Harmonious Blacksmith. I do appreciate your support and listening. And I look forward to continuing this music theory exploration with all of you.