Talk:Chord progression

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see short discussion at Talk:Harmonic progression

Contents 1 Is a progression a technique? 2 Misc 3 Rewrite rules 4 Explanation of notation 5 General 6 Retrogression 7 Confusion 8 Harmonic/Melodic Minor Scales 9 Sources

[edit] Is a progression a technique?

Mein freind und I enter a discusion he say technique is not progression i say the contrary wich is right???

--->ALSO A certain chord can be present in several different scales

example

      C E G bB  appears in the scales of   
               CDEFGA Bb ( C mixolydian )
               FGA Bb CDE ( F major ) 
               GA Bb CDE F#  ( G minor )    
               C Eb E F F# G Bb ( C blue scale ) 
                                       etc .... 

Therefore A chord is common to several tonalities

What you listed are scales. They consist of tones, not chords! And of course a certain tone can be present in several different scales, after all there are only 12 tones.

---> Especially modern jazz artists use these "characteristics " of chords by using chords progressions to create a constantly ongoing modulation ....

Theorists/ teachers (of this particular mode of playing ) include

            Nathan Davis 
            Hal Singer 

---

> Performers of these styles even fabricated so called " synthetic " scales

on several ( simple three chord ) progressions ( and a different one on "bridges" in anatole -pieces / ballad and tin -pan -alley material )

Sonny Rollins is an outstanding " player " of these linear approaches to motivistic and rapid scale- changing modes of improvisation

[edit] Misc

In the table, there under major IV, one of the progressions starts with a VI, I think this is a mistake, all the others start with the same as the title of the row but I don't feel as if I know enough to change it!

Under "Rewrite Rules," the link to "well-formed" doesn't go anywhere useful. I'm not sure what exactly it should link to. Maybe something should be added to the disambiguation page? Foxmulder 18:10, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Same goes for "cyclic." Also changed the VI to a IV; I assume that was a typo. Foxmulder 18:40, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Does "(assuming 12ET)" mean "assuming 12 equal tones?" This seems very unclear, why would it be written like that? BunDonkey 02:09, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite rules

The rewrite rules are quite unclear in the examples.

What does this mean:

1        2        3 4  5          6       7 8   9         10      11 12
bVi, bIII/bVII, IV/I/I//bVI, bIII/bVII, IV/I/I//bVI, bIII/bVII, IV/I/I//

I'm not sure what the slashes represent? 203.219.137.66 02:32, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I added an explination. How's it look now? Hyacinth 07:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks really good. I'm a beginner and it makes sense to me now. Initially I guessed the '/' were representing 'play chord again' or 'or play this chord' Thanks! 203.213.7.132 21:13, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Explanation of notation

The table on this page says "See the article chord (music) and chord symbol for an explanation of the notation used in this table." Obviously this was written before the two articles were merged together.

Somewhere along the way it seems that the description of this notation was lost, because I can't find any explanation of the difference between uppercase and lowercase Roman numerals (e.g., III and iii). Could someone explain what these mean, either here or in the Chord (music) page? -- Sakurambo 22:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Uppercase would be major, lowercase would be minor. Hyacinth 10:44, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes. I should have read the Chord article a bit more closely. Thanks :-) -- Sakurambo 21:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] General

• "In music of the common practice period, generally only certain chord progressions are used. Many of the other unused progressions are not traditionally considered tonal. It should be noted, however, that in most styles of music, chord progressions are resultant from voice leading patterns; thus the preceding observations are merely generalizations."

I removed the italicized portion above as it is a reply and thus belongs on the talk page and the preceding material already reads "generally". Hyacinth 10:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Retrogression

• A chord progression in its most basic definition, stands as an antonym for retrogression.

I removed the above as its unexplained and there is no article on retrogression. Hyacinth 06:59, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

• Chords often relate to each other in some phenomenological, tonally-coherent way—though this may not always be the case, especially when discussing more complex tonal music after 1840.

I don't know what "phenomenological, tonally-coherent way" means. Hyacinth 07:11, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion

I find this page confusing. Granted though, I am a novice in music theory.

I understand the notation used for the most part, but I am confused by the notation "ii6°".

The "ii" should indicate a supertonic root with a note a minor third above this. This makes sense. However, the "6" indicates a note a sixth above the root, while the "°" should indicate a diminished quality.

Does this indicate:

1. a diminished 5th *and* a 6th
2. only a diminished 5th
3. only a 6th (if this is figured bass notation)

In semitones, these possibilities would be:

1. 3-3-3
2. 3-3
3. 3-6

In the key of A minor (harmonic), the notes for each possibility would be

1. B-D-F-G#
2. B-D-F
3. B-D-G#.

If I were to name these, I would call these

1. ii°7
2. ii°
3. ii6

So, what is the correct interpretation? --70.226.193.242 11:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The notation ii refers to the pitch classes in the chord, in this case, B-D-F. The ° refers to the chord's diminished quality. The 6 refers to its inversion (see Inversion (music)), which means that this ii chord contains a 6th above the bass instead of a 5th, which is the case in first inversion (second inversion includes also a 4th instead of a 3rd, so is called 6/4). So, the first inversion of B-D-F is D-F-B. - Rainwarrior 17:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply. From Chord (music): Roman numerals indicate the root of the chord as a scale degree within a particular key .... From Inversion (music): In this system, inversions are indicated by a digit or digits written below a given bass note. My confusion was due to thinking that the root had to be the same as the bass in this context in order to work as a figured bass. It appears that this notation could be called figured Roman http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chord_symbol&oldid=43624551. The portion of the Chord symbol article discussing this was lost when that article was merged into Chord (music). Obviously, your interpretation is completely correct, and makes a lot of sense. However, it still raises some questions for me:

• What does the footnote in the table refer to? It seems to be talking about this, but the places where the asterisks are have no figured notation.
• Could not all chords be inverted as seen fit? It would make sense that this was done more commonly for certain chords, however the table as it is now seems to imply that there were only certain valid transitions, including particular inversions.
• Why was all mention of figured Roman removed? Strictly, Roman notation cannot be used with figured bass as it is described, since Roman describes the root and not the bass.

It seems to me that there is room for improvement in these articles. Does it make sense to discuss chords in the table without inversion, and then have an addendum discussing common inversions, and other additional details? Also, does it make sense to attempt to organize the discussion of figured notation somehow? I am not quite sure how to best do this, as figured notation is discussed in (at least) Chord (music), Inversion (music), and Figured bass --70.226.207.179 04:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

In answer to your questions:

• Umm, it looks like the footnote appears to be trying to explain how to build the particular chord. Do you take notes from the harmonic or melodic minor, and if melodic, which version do you use? In common practice music, there is a particular version that is used much more often than the others for each of these possibilities, so that's why the footnote is there, I suppose.
• No, the inversions aren't arbitrary. The table itself doesn't explain why those particular inversions are used, however. The reason comes from the practice of counterpoint. There are certain ways to write chord progressions smoothly, and if you take a study of counterpoint in classical music you'll find that in most progressions one particular form is extremely dominant. (For instance, try to find a 6/4 chord that's not part of I 6/4 - V - I.)
• I expect mention of "figured Roman" was removed because it is not a very widely used term. I've never heard anyone use it before. I've actually never heard a name for the use of roman numerals with figures (other than the ambiguous "chord symbols", or banal "roman numeral analysis"), but often the figures themselves are refered to as the "inversion" (e.g. "the 6/4 inversion").

As for improvement of the article, I would say that this article is pretty bad. I've only come to it recently, and haven't taken any time to work on it yet, but offhand I'd say that we should leave the inversions in the table, but it is very worth discussing the meaning of those inversions (which would be a good place to explain the inversion notation briefly as well). Also, the "rewrite rules" section is badly notated, and I'm not certain it belongs in this article at all (is it referred to anywhere but in that one book?). - Rainwarrior 05:28, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, looking at the table, I'm not sure the inversions used are the correct ones (but I still stand by my general statements before about there usually being one form for a progression, even if the table doesn't show the correct ones at the moment). I'll have to check over this later. - Rainwarrior 05:33, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Harmonic/Melodic Minor Scales

What about #vii° in harmonic scales? Would someone add or authorize me to add the chords in the other minor modes?

Natural minor:	i	ii°	III	iv	v	VI	VII
Harmonic:	i	ii°	III+	iv	V	VI	#vii°
Melodic:	i	ii	III+	IV	V	#vi°	#vii°

Hangfromthefloor 01:19, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

It is unclear to me where the chart of common transitions came from, does anybody know? I would like to find that source. I did not see it in the links, I'm in the process of hunting down the books now.