December 6, 2024 • 25 mins
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
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Episode Transcript
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UNKNOWN (00:00):
So,
SPEAKER_01 (00:41):
Welcome back! Hello, fellow theory lovers! All the
(01:14):
people that listen to my podcastare super nice.
Today's episode is acontinuation of some exploration
we've done in previous episodesabout chords and chord
progressions.
So this is a part two on theconcepts of chords and chord
(01:34):
progressions.
And also I'm going to do alittle bit of a review as a
carryover from that previousepisode, just to make sure
everybody's caught up.
And also just to reiterate somethings, because remember, as a
best way to learn music theoryand to understand it is to
participate in repetitions andto reiterate and to continue to
(01:59):
talk about things multiple timesrather than just one time.
So we're going to start with alittle bit of a general
overview, and I'm going to pullback to a few definitions to
make sure that we're all caughtup.
So number one, in your ownwords, in your head, I want you
to think about what at thispoint your definition of a chord
(02:24):
is.
What is the definition of achord in your own words?
It'll help even more if you sayit out loud.
Let me give you a few seconds todo that.
Everybody got it?
All right, so now for mydefinition of a chord, it is...
(02:49):
any three or more notes playedsimultaneously.
And I do mean literally anythree or more.
You can literally pick three ormore random notes on any
instrument you want to, stackthem on top of each other, and
then sound them simultaneously,and you have yourself a chord.
(03:12):
So that means this is a chord.
That means this is a chord.
UNKNOWN (03:18):
That means this is a chord.
SPEAKER_01 (03:19):
This is also a chord This is a chord This is a chord
And this is a chord doing thisrandomly invokes kind of chaotic
sounds, right?
It's wild, it's barbaric, it'snatural, but also it's just very
(03:45):
chaotic and unorganized.
So of course, we ended uporganizing things to our liking.
We want things to sound good andbe organized to our liking,
which is how we got to modernchords and chord progression.
So where does our system ofchords come from again?
A better question might be,where does everything in our
(04:07):
Western system of music comefrom?
You guessed it.
It always goes back to scalesand scale patterns, how they
evolved and how they'reorganized.
So, quick recap.
We learned what a scale wasoriginally.
We learned formulas for majorand minor scales.
Then after that, we learned thattriads were the first formation
(04:30):
for harmony in our Westernsystem.
and that they were the oppositeof random.
They were hyper-organized in away that we use the skipping
technique to take scale tonesand skip every other note until
we have three notes in a triadand use that as a basis for all
chords and chord progressions inour system.
(04:51):
And then centuries and centurieswent by and a bunch of smart
people got together and startedusing Roman numerals to denote
or derive what we know as chordprogressions.
That way we can separate it fromthe other numbers in the music
system, which is basically oneof my opinions about why Roman
(05:12):
numerals are used, other thanthe inventors just to prove and
show that they're smarter thaneverybody else.
It ended up being a really,really good system that we still
use to this day.
In the previous episode aboutchords and chord progressions,
we broke down a major key withmajor progressions.
So in honor of equal balance andalso my most recent moment,
(05:33):
minor episode previous to thisone, we are going to start with
a breakdown of minor and maybeget to some major chord
progressions later.
Who remembers the formula basedon whole steps and half steps
for a minor scale?
SPEAKER_02 (05:49):
Whole,
SPEAKER_01 (05:53):
half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole.
And I'm going to use A minorsince it has no sharps and flats
and so it would sound like this.
Another review question, howmany triads can I build in one
(06:16):
diatonic key?
The answer is seven.
We can build one off of eachpitch within the scale.
So the I chord in A minor is, ofcourse, A minor.
The II chord is going to be Bdiminished.
The III chord is C major.
(06:37):
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 originalA minor.
(06:57):
And if you recall, breaking downthis one minor key in A minor
means that you have learned howthe triads and chords are lined
up in all minor keys.
That's right.
They all work exactly the same.
They're all based from theformula that we talked about
previous, whole, half, whole,whole, half, whole, whole.
(07:18):
And therefore, all the triadscome 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 andminor keys have a nice balance
(07:42):
to them.
Both have three major chords.
Both have three minor chords.
And both have one diminishedchord.
But because we're in a differentdiatonic pattern, they are in a
different order.
order, which is what makes thekeys or the tonalities of minor
and major sound different theway they sound.
(08:06):
Next review question for the dayis, do you remember the three
most important Roman numeralnumbers when we talk about chord
progressions as it pertains towhat is the standard of chord
progressions in the It's the 1,the 4, and the 5.
(08:31):
So whether you're in minor ormajor, 1, 4, 5 are the three
chords in the system that giveus the most strong and logical
chord progressions.
And mostly has to do with therise and fall of musical tension
within chords that create thatsort of roller coaster that we
(08:53):
call a chord progression, if youremember that from previous.
But I will also remind you thatevery single melodic choice
within a key is included in thethree triads one four and five
so when you use those threechords you have every single
melodic possibility within a keylet me demonstrate that real
(09:16):
quick so again in a minor ourone four five would be a minor d
minor and e minor so do youremember how those chords are
formed from the triad skipping,right?
So what I'm going to do is I'mgoing to outline those to prove
to you that you have everymelodic possibility.
(09:38):
So an A minor chord is built ona I, III, and V, which is A, C,
and E.
That makes up the A minor chord.
The IV chord, the D minor, isbased on scale degrees IV, VI,
which is F, and I again, whichis A.
That makes up D minor so foursix and one and the five chord
(10:02):
which is e minor is based onscale degrees five seven and two
So E is five, G is seven, B istwo.
And when you stack those up, youget the five chord, which is E
minor.
When you add all those numberstogether, you get every single
(10:24):
note in the scale.
One, two, three, four, five,six, seven, and back to one.
So now proven that you haveevery single melodic possibility
within the key right thereburied within just the 1-4-5
progression alone.
(10:44):
So now it's time to branch offinto other chord progressions
though.
I mean, life would be prettyboring if every single piece of
music was a 1-4-5, right?
We want to hear some variety andwe want to hear the buffet of
sonorities in music Oh, I justcame up with that.
I like that.
Generally speaking, chordprogressions are going to start
(11:05):
and end on the one chord.
Think about it like this.
A chord progression is a lotlike a travel trip, meaning you
start from your home base, youtravel off to other places in
the world and have manyadventures, hopefully, and then
you eventually make your wayback home.
That is exactly how a chordprogression works.
(11:27):
So we're going to start and endon one, and we're going to go
through some kind Common chordprogression.
So let's do it.
The very first common chordprogression that we're going to
study today in minor is...
The 1-6-4-5-1 progression.
And this chord progression inour key of A minor that we broke
(11:47):
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'reback to one again.
So if I put those together, itwould more commonly sound like
this.
(12:27):
Now that may or may not remindyou of a song or even a hundred
songs, but I'll switch quicklyover to major for this one, six,
four, five.
Let's see what that sounds like.
So now I'm going to take the keyof C major.
Okay.
(12:48):
And let's do a 1-6-4-5 in major.
The reason I bring this up isbecause it was very common and
very widely used in the 50s inthe United States in the realms
of rock and roll and pop.
You're probably going to thinkof about 100 songs when you hear
this.
So let's do the key of C major,1-6-4-5 progression.
(13:11):
One, of course, is going to beC.
C.
Six is going to be A minor.
Four is F.
And five is G.
So now think of any number of50s songs that this sounds like.
(13:48):
So the 1645 is probably muchmore recognizable in major.
Some of the famous songs thatyou would have heard of are
Heart and Soul, Earth Angel bythe Penguins, Unchained Melody
by the Righteous Brothers, StandBy Me by Ben King, and I Will
Always Love You by Dolly Parton,which was made famous by the
(14:12):
late Whitney Houston.
If you remember the movieBodyguard, oh my goodness, I am
totally dating myself on thatone our next minor progression
to talk about is a one six threeseven chord progression this one
is very common in pop and rockmusic and remember this is a
(14:33):
minor progression so the onechord's minor the six is major
the three is major and the sevenis major we're using all three
of the major chords in a minorkey and that would sound like
this Some of the more famoussongs you might recognize that
(15:03):
use this chord progression areZombie by the Cranberries Save
Tonight by Eagle Eye CherryHoliday and 21 Guns, both by
Green Day.
He really liked thatprogression.
And Self-Esteem by TheOffspring.
And those are just a few famousones.
(15:24):
There are so many more songsthat you could look up that I'm
not listing here that use thatprogression, as it is very
common.
The next minor chord progressionwe're going to visit is one of
the coolest and one of myfavorites.
And it's called...
The Andalusian Cadence.
This chord progression is a1-7-6-5-7 chord progression.
(15:53):
That is a minor 1, a major 7, amajor 6, and a major 5-7.
Does anybody out there rememberfrom previous episodes of minor
about how we get a major 5 chordin a minor key?
(16:13):
It's when we alter the seventhscale degree in the natural
minor scale, raise it up to asharp seven, which becomes a
leading tone, which makes ourfive chord major and gives us
this progression.
The Andalusian cadence was namedafter the area in South Spain
(16:34):
called Andalusia, which was thebirthplace of flamenco.
I'm sure many of you have heardof Malagueña, which is a folk
song type within the idiom offlamenco.
A malagueña might sound likethis.
(17:06):
So this chord progression tendsto be kind of a representative
caricature of Spanish music fora lot of people.
But there are actually a lot ofpop and rock songs that use this
chord progression as well.
Hit the Road Jack by PercyMayfield.
That famous tune uses it.
Sultans of Swing by DireStraits.
(17:29):
and also Happy Together by theTurtles, just to name a few.
The next minor progression thatwe're going to look into is a
minor 1, major 3, major 7, minor4 progression, and it sounds
like this.
¦And I would like to note thatthis chord progression has no V
(18:12):
chord in it.
We're so used to having a V orhearing a V.
And remember, that's becauseit's like the peak of musical
tension within a chordprogression that helps us
resolve back to the I chord,therefore establishing or
re-establishing a key in yourear.
(18:33):
But this particular chordprogression doesn't really do
that.
It kind of dances around.
Examples of famous songs thatuse this chord progression are
Just Dance by Lady Gaga, SOS byABBA, and Personal Jesus by
Depeche Mode.
Now for the next minor chordprogression, there is a new
(18:54):
concept that we need to learntoday, which is called a
borrowed chord.
A borrowed chord is a chord thatis borrowed, in quotes, from the
parallel major or minor.
If you remember parallel majorand minors from my previous
episode, basically, if you're inG major, for example, G minor is
(19:19):
the parallel minor.
If you're in A minor, A major isa parallel major.
So same root note, but justflipping from major to minor or
minor to major.
So to sum up, a borrowed chordis really just a chord that
you're borrowing from theparallel major or minor
depending which key that you'rein and that leads to my next
(19:40):
chord progression which is minorone major seven major four which
is the borrowed chord and then amajor five which is an altered
five from harmonic minor i knowi know things are getting a
little tricky now examples ofthe minor one major seven major
(20:01):
If you feel a little waywardright now with all this, feel
free to go back and listen to myepisode on minor again, just to
understand why minor is sosquirrely and kind of elusive
(20:25):
and has a bunch of alteredchords in it, really just to
make chord progressions strongerand Okay, so I would like to
finish this study of minor chordprogressions by really just
getting back to the basics so wecan pull it all together.
(20:47):
So I'm going to come back andlet you hear a comparison
between the natural minor 1,minor 4, and minor 5 that
naturally happen in what we callnatural minor, or now you know
the Greek mode, is calledAeolian.
And I'm going to compare that tousing the altered five that has
(21:08):
the leading tone in it that wecall harmonic minor.
Now, if you recall from theprevious episode, harmonic minor
stems from the word harmonic orharmony, right?
Because we're altering thatpitch to change the harmony,
which is another word of sayingwe're changing the chords.
So the whole point of changingthe seventh scale degree in
(21:31):
minor is to give a strongerchord progression.
So let's hear a comparisonbetween the two.
Let me start with natural minor.
All minor chords 1, 4, and 5would sound like this.
Now compare that with thealtered V chord that generally
(21:55):
gets altered to strengthen thechord progression, where we're
going to have a major V now.
And that would sound like this.
Hear how much stronger that Vchord is with tension and
release.
(22:16):
Now, I know this is review fromthe previous episode, but I just
wanted to end with this becauseI know I went over a lot of
chord progressions, and I justwanted to remind you why minor
is just so squirrely and kind ofstrange.
It tends to be a little bit moredifficult to write in, I would
say, as a composer, and sothings get changed and altered
(22:38):
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 rememberall that?
SPEAKER_01 (22:48):
Yeah, that's true.
That was a lot of chordprogressions.
I realize that was a lot ofinformation.
The beauty of a podcast is youcan always go listen to it
again.
But what I really hope is thatyou kind of just explore some of
those examples I listed and someof those chord progressions I
listed and kind of get familiarwith them.
I will say this.
We're just scratching thesurface, right?
There are really extended andlonger chord progressions that
(23:12):
are much more involved.
I just didn't want to get intoall that yet because we're still
building here on the HarmoniousBlacksmiths.
We're still taking conceptsprevious and we're still
building with our buildingblocks trying to continue to
make this infrastructure grow.
And when I do a part three ofthis in the future, we're going
(23:35):
to get to explore key changesand modal chord progressions, a
whole But for now, it's time forBreakdown.
(23:56):
Today we learned a lot moreabout chord progressions.
But we did start with reviews oftriads, chords, chord
progressions, and Romannumerals.
We learned a new term calledborrowed chords and how chords
(24:18):
get borrowed from parallel majorand minor keys.
We did a review of the leadingtone and harmonic minor and why
alterations are made in minorkeys.
We broke down a minor key andhow the Roman numerals lay out
(24:39):
within a minor key.
We also went through many chordprogressions in minor and a few
in major, really too many tolist here, but you can always go
back and listen again.
And I had fun finding all kindsof examples for these chord
(25:01):
progressions for you to go outand listen to.
Thanks again for tuning in tothe Harmonious Blacksmith.
I do appreciate your support andlistening.
And I look forward to continuingthis music theory exploration
(25:23):
with all of you.
So,
SPEAKER_01 (00:41):
Welcome back! Hello, fellow theory lovers! All the
(01:14):
people that listen to my podcastare super nice.
Today's episode is acontinuation of some exploration
we've done in previous episodesabout chords and chord
progressions.
So this is a part two on theconcepts of chords and chord
(01:34):
progressions.
And also I'm going to do alittle bit of a review as a
carryover from that previousepisode, just to make sure
everybody's caught up.
And also just to reiterate somethings, because remember, as a
best way to learn music theoryand to understand it is to
participate in repetitions andto reiterate and to continue to
(01:59):
talk about things multiple timesrather than just one time.
So we're going to start with alittle bit of a general
overview, and I'm going to pullback to a few definitions to
make sure that we're all caughtup.
So number one, in your ownwords, in your head, I want you
to think about what at thispoint your definition of a chord
(02:24):
is.
What is the definition of achord in your own words?
It'll help even more if you sayit out loud.
Let me give you a few seconds todo that.
Everybody got it?
All right, so now for mydefinition of a chord, it is...
(02:49):
any three or more notes playedsimultaneously.
And I do mean literally anythree or more.
You can literally pick three ormore random notes on any
instrument you want to, stackthem on top of each other, and
then sound them simultaneously,and you have yourself a chord.
(03:12):
So that means this is a chord.
That means this is a chord.
UNKNOWN (03:18):
That means this is a chord.
SPEAKER_01 (03:19):
This is also a chord This is a chord This is a chord
And this is a chord doing thisrandomly invokes kind of chaotic
sounds, right?
It's wild, it's barbaric, it'snatural, but also it's just very
(03:45):
chaotic and unorganized.
So of course, we ended uporganizing things to our liking.
We want things to sound good andbe organized to our liking,
which is how we got to modernchords and chord progression.
So where does our system ofchords come from again?
A better question might be,where does everything in our
(04:07):
Western system of music comefrom?
You guessed it.
It always goes back to scalesand scale patterns, how they
evolved and how they'reorganized.
So, quick recap.
We learned what a scale wasoriginally.
We learned formulas for majorand minor scales.
Then after that, we learned thattriads were the first formation
(04:30):
for harmony in our Westernsystem.
and that they were the oppositeof random.
They were hyper-organized in away that we use the skipping
technique to take scale tonesand skip every other note until
we have three notes in a triadand use that as a basis for all
chords and chord progressions inour system.
(04:51):
And then centuries and centurieswent by and a bunch of smart
people got together and startedusing Roman numerals to denote
or derive what we know as chordprogressions.
That way we can separate it fromthe other numbers in the music
system, which is basically oneof my opinions about why Roman
(05:12):
numerals are used, other thanthe inventors just to prove and
show that they're smarter thaneverybody else.
It ended up being a really,really good system that we still
use to this day.
In the previous episode aboutchords and chord progressions,
we broke down a major key withmajor progressions.
So in honor of equal balance andalso my most recent moment,
(05:33):
minor episode previous to thisone, we are going to start with
a breakdown of minor and maybeget to some major chord
progressions later.
Who remembers the formula basedon whole steps and half steps
for a minor scale?
SPEAKER_02 (05:49):
Whole,
SPEAKER_01 (05:53):
half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole.
And I'm going to use A minorsince it has no sharps and flats
and so it would sound like this.
Another review question, howmany triads can I build in one
(06:16):
diatonic key?
The answer is seven.
We can build one off of eachpitch within the scale.
So the I chord in A minor is, ofcourse, A minor.
The II chord is going to be Bdiminished.
The III chord is C major.
(06:37):
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 originalA minor.
(06:57):
And if you recall, breaking downthis one minor key in A minor
means that you have learned howthe triads and chords are lined
up in all minor keys.
That's right.
They all work exactly the same.
They're all based from theformula that we talked about
previous, whole, half, whole,whole, half, whole, whole.
(07:18):
And therefore, all the triadscome 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 andminor keys have a nice balance
(07:42):
to them.
Both have three major chords.
Both have three minor chords.
And both have one diminishedchord.
But because we're in a differentdiatonic pattern, they are in a
different order.
order, which is what makes thekeys or the tonalities of minor
and major sound different theway they sound.
(08:06):
Next review question for the dayis, do you remember the three
most important Roman numeralnumbers when we talk about chord
progressions as it pertains towhat is the standard of chord
progressions in the It's the 1,the 4, and the 5.
(08:31):
So whether you're in minor ormajor, 1, 4, 5 are the three
chords in the system that giveus the most strong and logical
chord progressions.
And mostly has to do with therise and fall of musical tension
within chords that create thatsort of roller coaster that we
(08:53):
call a chord progression, if youremember that from previous.
But I will also remind you thatevery single melodic choice
within a key is included in thethree triads one four and five
so when you use those threechords you have every single
melodic possibility within a keylet me demonstrate that real
(09:16):
quick so again in a minor ourone four five would be a minor d
minor and e minor so do youremember how those chords are
formed from the triad skipping,right?
So what I'm going to do is I'mgoing to outline those to prove
to you that you have everymelodic possibility.
(09:38):
So an A minor chord is built ona I, III, and V, which is A, C,
and E.
That makes up the A minor chord.
The IV chord, the D minor, isbased on scale degrees IV, VI,
which is F, and I again, whichis A.
That makes up D minor so foursix and one and the five chord
(10:02):
which is e minor is based onscale degrees five seven and two
So E is five, G is seven, B istwo.
And when you stack those up, youget the five chord, which is E
minor.
When you add all those numberstogether, you get every single
(10:24):
note in the scale.
One, two, three, four, five,six, seven, and back to one.
So now proven that you haveevery single melodic possibility
within the key right thereburied within just the 1-4-5
progression alone.
(10:44):
So now it's time to branch offinto other chord progressions
though.
I mean, life would be prettyboring if every single piece of
music was a 1-4-5, right?
We want to hear some variety andwe want to hear the buffet of
sonorities in music Oh, I justcame up with that.
I like that.
Generally speaking, chordprogressions are going to start
(11:05):
and end on the one chord.
Think about it like this.
A chord progression is a lotlike a travel trip, meaning you
start from your home base, youtravel off to other places in
the world and have manyadventures, hopefully, and then
you eventually make your wayback home.
That is exactly how a chordprogression works.
(11:27):
So we're going to start and endon one, and we're going to go
through some kind Common chordprogression.
So let's do it.
The very first common chordprogression that we're going to
study today in minor is...
The 1-6-4-5-1 progression.
And this chord progression inour key of A minor that we broke
(11:47):
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'reback to one again.
So if I put those together, itwould more commonly sound like
this.
(12:27):
Now that may or may not remindyou of a song or even a hundred
songs, but I'll switch quicklyover to major for this one, six,
four, five.
Let's see what that sounds like.
So now I'm going to take the keyof C major.
Okay.
(12:48):
And let's do a 1-6-4-5 in major.
The reason I bring this up isbecause it was very common and
very widely used in the 50s inthe United States in the realms
of rock and roll and pop.
You're probably going to thinkof about 100 songs when you hear
this.
So let's do the key of C major,1-6-4-5 progression.
(13:11):
One, of course, is going to beC.
C.
Six is going to be A minor.
Four is F.
And five is G.
So now think of any number of50s songs that this sounds like.
(13:48):
So the 1645 is probably muchmore recognizable in major.
Some of the famous songs thatyou would have heard of are
Heart and Soul, Earth Angel bythe Penguins, Unchained Melody
by the Righteous Brothers, StandBy Me by Ben King, and I Will
Always Love You by Dolly Parton,which was made famous by the
(14:12):
late Whitney Houston.
If you remember the movieBodyguard, oh my goodness, I am
totally dating myself on thatone our next minor progression
to talk about is a one six threeseven chord progression this one
is very common in pop and rockmusic and remember this is a
(14:33):
minor progression so the onechord's minor the six is major
the three is major and the sevenis major we're using all three
of the major chords in a minorkey and that would sound like
this Some of the more famoussongs you might recognize that
(15:03):
use this chord progression areZombie by the Cranberries Save
Tonight by Eagle Eye CherryHoliday and 21 Guns, both by
Green Day.
He really liked thatprogression.
And Self-Esteem by TheOffspring.
And those are just a few famousones.
(15:24):
There are so many more songsthat you could look up that I'm
not listing here that use thatprogression, as it is very
common.
The next minor chord progressionwe're going to visit is one of
the coolest and one of myfavorites.
And it's called...
The Andalusian Cadence.
This chord progression is a1-7-6-5-7 chord progression.
(15:53):
That is a minor 1, a major 7, amajor 6, and a major 5-7.
Does anybody out there rememberfrom previous episodes of minor
about how we get a major 5 chordin a minor key?
(16:13):
It's when we alter the seventhscale degree in the natural
minor scale, raise it up to asharp seven, which becomes a
leading tone, which makes ourfive chord major and gives us
this progression.
The Andalusian cadence was namedafter the area in South Spain
(16:34):
called Andalusia, which was thebirthplace of flamenco.
I'm sure many of you have heardof Malagueña, which is a folk
song type within the idiom offlamenco.
A malagueña might sound likethis.
(17:06):
So this chord progression tendsto be kind of a representative
caricature of Spanish music fora lot of people.
But there are actually a lot ofpop and rock songs that use this
chord progression as well.
Hit the Road Jack by PercyMayfield.
That famous tune uses it.
Sultans of Swing by DireStraits.
(17:29):
and also Happy Together by theTurtles, just to name a few.
The next minor progression thatwe're going to look into is a
minor 1, major 3, major 7, minor4 progression, and it sounds
like this.
¦And I would like to note thatthis chord progression has no V
(18:12):
chord in it.
We're so used to having a V orhearing a V.
And remember, that's becauseit's like the peak of musical
tension within a chordprogression that helps us
resolve back to the I chord,therefore establishing or
re-establishing a key in yourear.
(18:33):
But this particular chordprogression doesn't really do
that.
It kind of dances around.
Examples of famous songs thatuse this chord progression are
Just Dance by Lady Gaga, SOS byABBA, and Personal Jesus by
Depeche Mode.
Now for the next minor chordprogression, there is a new
(18:54):
concept that we need to learntoday, which is called a
borrowed chord.
A borrowed chord is a chord thatis borrowed, in quotes, from the
parallel major or minor.
If you remember parallel majorand minors from my previous
episode, basically, if you're inG major, for example, G minor is
(19:19):
the parallel minor.
If you're in A minor, A major isa parallel major.
So same root note, but justflipping from major to minor or
minor to major.
So to sum up, a borrowed chordis really just a chord that
you're borrowing from theparallel major or minor
depending which key that you'rein and that leads to my next
(19:40):
chord progression which is minorone major seven major four which
is the borrowed chord and then amajor five which is an altered
five from harmonic minor i knowi know things are getting a
little tricky now examples ofthe minor one major seven major
(20:01):
If you feel a little waywardright now with all this, feel
free to go back and listen to myepisode on minor again, just to
understand why minor is sosquirrely and kind of elusive
(20:25):
and has a bunch of alteredchords in it, really just to
make chord progressions strongerand Okay, so I would like to
finish this study of minor chordprogressions by really just
getting back to the basics so wecan pull it all together.
(20:47):
So I'm going to come back andlet you hear a comparison
between the natural minor 1,minor 4, and minor 5 that
naturally happen in what we callnatural minor, or now you know
the Greek mode, is calledAeolian.
And I'm going to compare that tousing the altered five that has
(21:08):
the leading tone in it that wecall harmonic minor.
Now, if you recall from theprevious episode, harmonic minor
stems from the word harmonic orharmony, right?
Because we're altering thatpitch to change the harmony,
which is another word of sayingwe're changing the chords.
So the whole point of changingthe seventh scale degree in
(21:31):
minor is to give a strongerchord progression.
So let's hear a comparisonbetween the two.
Let me start with natural minor.
All minor chords 1, 4, and 5would sound like this.
Now compare that with thealtered V chord that generally
(21:55):
gets altered to strengthen thechord progression, where we're
going to have a major V now.
And that would sound like this.
Hear how much stronger that Vchord is with tension and
release.
(22:16):
Now, I know this is review fromthe previous episode, but I just
wanted to end with this becauseI know I went over a lot of
chord progressions, and I justwanted to remind you why minor
is just so squirrely and kind ofstrange.
It tends to be a little bit moredifficult to write in, I would
say, as a composer, and sothings get changed and altered
(22:38):
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 rememberall that?
SPEAKER_01 (22:48):
Yeah, that's true.
That was a lot of chordprogressions.
I realize that was a lot ofinformation.
The beauty of a podcast is youcan always go listen to it
again.
But what I really hope is thatyou kind of just explore some of
those examples I listed and someof those chord progressions I
listed and kind of get familiarwith them.
I will say this.
We're just scratching thesurface, right?
There are really extended andlonger chord progressions that
(23:12):
are much more involved.
I just didn't want to get intoall that yet because we're still
building here on the HarmoniousBlacksmiths.
We're still taking conceptsprevious and we're still
building with our buildingblocks trying to continue to
make this infrastructure grow.
And when I do a part three ofthis in the future, we're going
(23:35):
to get to explore key changesand modal chord progressions, a
whole But for now, it's time forBreakdown.
(23:56):
Today we learned a lot moreabout chord progressions.
But we did start with reviews oftriads, chords, chord
progressions, and Romannumerals.
We learned a new term calledborrowed chords and how chords
(24:18):
get borrowed from parallel majorand minor keys.
We did a review of the leadingtone and harmonic minor and why
alterations are made in minorkeys.
We broke down a minor key andhow the Roman numerals lay out
(24:39):
within a minor key.
We also went through many chordprogressions in minor and a few
in major, really too many tolist here, but you can always go
back and listen again.
And I had fun finding all kindsof examples for these chord
(25:01):
progressions for you to go outand listen to.
Thanks again for tuning in tothe Harmonious Blacksmith.
I do appreciate your support andlistening.
And I look forward to continuingthis music theory exploration
(25:23):
with all of you.
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