the diatonic circle chord progression

The Diatonic Circle Chord Progression

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The diatonic circle progression is once of the most common progression you'll see in pop music.During the previous lesson we've learned to form four voices seven chords. In this piano lessonwe're going to start using 7th chords in our chord progression. That means we're getting into jazzmusic!

Today we're going to use these wonderful colourful chords we've learned in the diatonic circleprogression and play some great songs like "I will survive", "Autumn leaves" and more...

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The Diatonic Circle Chord Progression http://www.piano-play-it.com/chord-progression.html

1 de 11 06/10/2015 03:31 p.m.

http://www.piano-play-it.com/chord-progression.html

In the previous piano theory lessons we talked about the most basic progression in every type ofwestern music; the I-V7-I.

In this following progression we're going to move from the tonic (I - first degree) to the dominantseventh (fifth degree - V7) which creates a tension back to the tonic that brings a musical phrase toconclusion.

The fifth degree is falling five steps to the first degree and that's why it is called a cadence. Theword "Cadence" in Italian means falling. When the Italian talk they tend to drop their pitch in the lastsyllable of their sentence. That's where the logic of this term derives from.

Here's how the bass line looks like when a falling of a fifth is performed. It is moving five steps downfrom G to C.

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2 de 11 06/10/2015 03:31 p.m.


We also talked about the II-V7-I progression already which is a small expansion of this cadence.We stepped five steps from the second degree down to the fifth degree and then went to the firstdegree (Which occured again by falling five steps down).

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3 de 11 06/10/2015 03:31 p.m.


Notice that when you perform a falling of two fifth on the piano you have quite a distance to go.After falling down from D to G it is handy to go a fourth up to the upper C instead of dropping toanother fifth to the lower C. The ear still understands this as a falling of two fifths since that a fourthup is an inversion of a falling fifth.

The diatonic circle progression is basically and expansion of this basic chord s stretched over thewhole diatonic scale.

Let me explain. The diatonic circle shows you that you can continue to fall in fifths endlessly in thediatonic circle until you choose to go out to a safe point.

The most natural option is to continue to fall in fifths in the scale and go out to the tonic by reachingthe G7 chord which is the true dominant of C major, like in this example below where we start fromthe sixth degree of C major (Am).

Am - Dm - G7 - C

If we play a song in the minor scale like Autumn Leaves for example, (See below) we will continuein falling in fifths in the diatonic circle until we reach the Em chord. Then, instead of playing Em wewill replace it with E7 which is the dominant seventh of Am. That would be our way to increase thetension towards the tonic and step out of the scale.

In this example we start from Am and we fall in fifths through the whole scale until we reach the E7that leads us to Am again. If you don't play an E7 chord but Em instead (The natural Dominant ofthe minor scale) the impact of the fifth won't be strong enough to finish the process and so we willend up falling in fifths again until we add a dominant seven chord somewhere later.

Am - Dm - G - C - F - Bo - E7 - Am

Let's first see how we form this progression on the piano by using triad chords (three voices

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4 de 11 06/10/2015 03:31 p.m.


chords).

This scheme would clarify my explanations I'm sure...

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Here's a free piano chord chart of the falling diatonic circle chord progression with triads in allscales.

Now all we've left to do is add the seventh notes of all these diatonic chords and make this greatprogression much richer.


5 de 11 06/10/2015 03:31 p.m.


A Tip: If you play this chord progression with the four voices chords notice, that when moving fromthe sixth degree to the second degree you basically lower the upper two keys one white key to theleft. Then, while moving from the second degree to the next drop of fifth to G7 you move the lower

two keys to the left.

Here's a free piano chord chart of the falling diatonic circle progression with four voices chords in allscales.

Now I'd like us to see a few examples of famous songs that contain this chord progression.


6 de 11 06/10/2015 03:31 p.m.


Autumn Leaves

Take Autumn Leaves for example... it is played in A minor scale.In this song we're starting to play from the fourth degree of Em (Am). We fall in fifths in the diatoniccircle of Em until we reach Bm (The natural Vth degree of Em).When we reach B minor we will replace it with B7, the dominant seventh of E minor and this chordwill encourage us to snap out of the scale straight to the tonic.

Notice that in Autumn Leaves we play in a different chord inversion and therefore instead of goingup with the upper two notes of the chord we go up with the lower two keys of the chord.

I will Survive

The famous song "I will survive" is a living example of the diatonic circle chord progression. We


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start from Cm, the tonic, then we move down in fifths in the diatonic circle of Cm until we reach thefifth degree of Cm.

We replace it with Gsus7, which is a suspension chord leading to G7, the dominant seventh chordthat tells us we have to snap out of the circle back to Cm. Then we start this chord progression allover again.

As you can probably see in this song I chose to demonstrate this chord progression with an otherchord inversion so that you'll how we jump from Cm to Fm for example with all three voices (Thelower two voices jump a third down and the upper voice is stepping one step lower).

When moving from Fm to Bb we will leave the F as a static note and raise the lower two voices ofFm (Ab and C) one step up. What we're doing is moving the voices just like we did in the previousexample only vice versa.

All The Things You Are


8 de 11 06/10/2015 03:31 p.m.


I'll use the next song to demonstrate the diatonic circle chord progression with seven chords.

When we play the song "All the Things You Are" we start from the I degree of F minor (and we addthe seven as a color). Then we fall in fifths again and again until we reach the sixth degree Db (withthe major seventh as a color).


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From this moment on we actually change our point of view. We now want to go to a new scale, Cmajor. So from the sixth degree of F minor we will go to the D half diminished chord which is thesecond degree of C minor and then we will fall a fifth down again to G7, the true dominant of Cminor. The we will use C major instead. Why?

The ending of a musical line with a major chord instead of a minor chords (The natural tonic of thescale is called a picardy third.

We will start our next musical line in C minor and set it as the tonic chord. We will drop in fifthswhithin the scale structure of C minor (with the seventh as a colour) until we reach the sixth degreeAbmaj7(with the major seventh as a colour again), then move to the II-V7-I of G minor and We willend the line with G major (a picardy third again).

The Diatonic Circle chord progression will help you now to memorize thepattern of similar chord progressions. The biggest problem you face whentrying to play a song smoothly is that you have to be able to remember allthe chord shapes and switch between the different chords fast. The goal oflearning to play the piano chords quickly could be achieved much fasterwith the help of the Rocket Piano Learning Kit that will help you to train

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the diatonic circle chord progression

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