The Complete Idiot''s Guide to Music Theory

Chapter 10:Chord Progressions 137

IV-I-IV-V

As this progression shows, you don’t have to start your chord progression on
the tonic. In the key of C, it looks like this:

F / / / C / / / F / / / G / / /

This progression has a bit of a rolling nature to it, but also a bit of an unre-
solved nature. You can keep repeating this progression (leading from the V back
to the IV), or end the song by leading the progression home to a I chord.

ii-V-I

This progression is quite popular in jazz, often played with seventh chords
throughout. So you might actually play a ii7-V7-I progression, like this (in the
key of C):

Dm7 / / / G7 / / / CM7 / / /

Sometimes jazz tunes cycle through this progression in a variety of keys, often
using the circle of fifths to modulatethrough the keys. (That’s the term you use
any time you change key.)

Circle of Fifths Progression

There’s one more chord progression that’s fairly common, and it’s based on the
circle of fifths you learned about back in Chapter 9. Put simply, it’s a progression
where each chord is a fifth above the next chord; each chord functions as the
dominant chord for the succeeding chord. The progression circles back around
on itself, always coming back to the tonic chord, like this: I-IV-vii°-iii-vi-ii-V-I.

The IV-I-IV-V progression is

also frequently played at

the end of a phrase in

many jazz tunes. Used in

this manner, it’s called a

turnaround.(See Chapter

16 to learn more.)

Note

The circle of fifths progression presented here is a simple one you can use without

getting into nonscale chords. But there’s also another, longer, circle of fifths pro-

gression, based on chromatic chords, that you might want to play around with.

It’s a little too complex to write out in Roman numeral notation, but it works by

having each chord function as the precise subdominant of the next chord—that is,

the chords move in perfect fifths around the chromatic scale. Even more fun, each

chord is turned into a dominant seventh chord, to make the dominant-tonic rela-

tionship more explicit. Here’s how it works, in the key of C:

C / / / C7 / / / F / / / F7 / / / B
/ / / B
7 / / /

E
/ / / E
7 / / / A
/ / / A
7 / / / D
/ / / D
7 / / /

G
/ / / G
7 / / / B / / / B7 / / / E / / / E7 / / /

A / / / A7 / / / D / / / D7 / / / G / / / G7 / / / C

You can jump on and off this progression at any point in the cycle. Kind of neat

how it circles around, isn’t it?

Note