I-vi progression?

[kiteman]

I know we have the I-IV and the I-V progressions but I-vi?

Major and minor, C and Am in my case. I made a progression C to C as an exercise and used all 7 chords arranged in 3rds. Rhythm and lead parts. I had an old progression I made in Am but it starts on the V and end on the V. I appended it to the end of the exercise and they sounded like a song.

So if it sounded good (to me) then I did something wrong? :confused:

[Robert]

If it sounded good, I think you did something right.

The I - vi progression is very common.

Some good chord progression info on ol' trusty Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_progression

[kiteman]

Thanks, I haven't heard much about I-vi progressions so why I asked. Looks like I can trust my ears more. :)

[Robert]

Always trust your ears! Many of the best songwriters just play and see what gives. Not necessary to follow formulas, etc - trust your ears! If it sounds good, it IS good. That's my motto, and I'm sticking to it. :french

[aeolian]

I don't think there is a wrong in music. A I - vi should be very common since it fits in the scale of the root.

I like to play around with chord progressions that do not fit with the normal chords for a key. One particular one that I discovered recently (it has been used for a long time, I just never realize the theory implications) is the use of the 7-flat major to the root key. For example in a song in the key of G someone would use an F chord and it sounds great. I thought about it and realize that the F consist of the b7-2-4 (f-a-c) of the root key so it works kind of like the 2 chord or the 7 chord but with the dominant 7 sound.

Another progression that I'm still in the learning stage is the standard ii-V-I in jazz music. By playing around I found that the weird thing about ii-V-I is that I can jump around from one key to another randomly and very very rarely does it sound out of place. Just a couple of days ago I found out that I can also substitute the ii from one key for the ii of another key and it also seems to work too. So far all I know is that I can do this to create interesting sounds, but I have no idea why it works theory-wise. I will have to spend more time on it to try and understand what is happening.

I read an idea somewhere which I think is a great piece of advice. The suggestion to create some interesting progressions is to take a regular progression, and somewhere where the progression normally has a major chord, substitute the minor instead, or vice versa. Do this sparingly in the progression and you can get really interesting sounding stuff.

If other fretters have ideas like this I would love to hear about them.

[Robert]

aeolian, check out bebop - the 2-5-1 progression is all over the place in bebop, and often lots of chord changes too.

Check out Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, etc for that hot bebop!

[kiteman]

I don't think there is a wrong in music. A I - vi should be very common since it fits in the scale of the root.

I like to play around with chord progressions that do not fit with the normal chords for a key. One particular one that I discovered recently (it has been used for a long time, I just never realize the theory implications) is the use of the 7-flat major to the root key. For example in a song in the key of G someone would use an F chord and it sounds great. I thought about it and realize that the F consist of the b7-2-4 (f-a-c) of the root key so it works kind of like the 2 chord or the 7 chord but with the dominant 7 sound.

Another progression that I'm still in the learning stage is the standard ii-V-I in jazz music. By playing around I found that the weird thing about ii-V-I is that I can jump around from one key to another randomly and very very rarely does it sound out of place. Just a couple of days ago I found out that I can also substitute the ii from one key for the ii of another key and it also seems to work too. So far all I know is that I can do this to create interesting sounds, but I have no idea why it works theory-wise. I will have to spend more time on it to try and understand what is happening.

I read an idea somewhere which I think is a great piece of advice. The suggestion to create some interesting progressions is to take a regular progression, and somewhere where the progression normally has a major chord, substitute the minor instead, or vice versa. Do this sparingly in the progression and you can get really interesting sounding stuff.

If other fretters have ideas like this I would love to hear about them.

Interesting aeolian. I've altered notes and chords in songs and heard interesting changes. I did it out of boredom. I've played repeated phrases that's getting ho-hum that I changed a note or chord in every other phrases to keep a spark. Worked out pretty good. :)

For example in my medley:

Em-D-C-Bm x4

That gets boring so on second round I played phrase 3 & 4 with a B on the end.

Stuff like this is what keeps guitars interesting and I'm learning something in the process, slowly but surely. :)

[aeolian]

Interesting aeolian. I've altered notes and chords in songs and heard interesting changes. I did it out of boredom. I've played repeated phrases that's getting ho-hum that I changed a note or chord in every other phrases to keep a spark. Worked out pretty good. :)

For example in my medley:

Em-D-C-Bm x4

That gets boring so on second round I played phrase 3 & 4 with a B on the end.

Stuff like this is what keeps guitars interesting and I'm learning something in the process, slowly but surely. :)

I assume your medley example is in the key of G because

chords : Em-D-C-Bm
chords in the scale of G : 6 -5 -4- 3

so your progression consists of the 6, 5, 4, and 3 chords in the scale of G. When you change the Bm to B you end up with a sharp 5th instead of the normal 5th. You are practicing the idea I read about and pointed out in my post. You did it probably because you like the sound of the change, but now you know the reasoning behind it.

By the way, this chord sequence (not necessarily in this key) is the beginning of Stray Cat Strut.

[kiteman]

I assume your medley example is in the key of G because

chords : Em-D-C-Bm
chords in the scale of G : 6 -5 -4- 3

so your progression consists of the 6, 5, 4, and 3 chords in the scale of G. When you change the Bm to B you end up with a sharp 5th instead of the normal 5th. You are practicing the idea I read about and pointed out in my post. You did it probably because you like the sound of the change, but now you know the reasoning behind it.

By the way, this chord sequence (not necessarily in this key) is the beginning of Stray Cat Strut.

E minor is relative to G major. The signature will be G. :)

EDIT: Since it's a medley I have parts of two songs and the second song is A minor so there's a modulation to C.

EDIT AGAIN: About the Stray Cats I didn't know that. My medley is both songs from Blue Oyster Cult but I'm sure progressions are repeated everywhere. Think of how much music is out there thru history. I made a song using the progression of Randy Rhodes from Killer of Giants. Very interesting progression because Randy played normal barre chords but the B and the E strings are played open. I made a nice tune that in the second round it's double time. :)