Progression Analysis I

Your first guess might be that the Key is A Major, but... it doesn't sound very good. Something's wrong.

The giveaway here is that we have two major chords side by side. There's only one spot that happens in a diatonic progression, that's on the IV and V.

If A and B are our IV and V, then C#m must be our vi and G# must be our iii.

That makes this a IV-V-vi-iii progression.

If you haven't clued in yet, remember that the iv chord is the Relative Minor of the I. So, we can think of this progression as being in C# Minor or E Major. Since we actually have a C# Minor in the progression, though, that's going to be the stronger choice here.

Now that we've established the Key and confirmed that the progression is fully diatonic, we can take our usual approach to improvisation from here, and play with the C# Minor Scale, C# Pentatonic and C# Blues Pentatonic. 

You can of course use your knowledge of chord tones, arpeggios, triads, 3NPS forms, etc. to expand on that!

Another idea, though, is to come back to our original false assumption of an A Major root. In fact, we can make A our root, but we need to treat it appropriately. As the IV chord, it goes hand in hand with the Lydian Mode! Try it out.

Let's break this out using our Roman Numerals. If we assume F is the root, we get:

I - III - vi - IV

With the chord notation that's:

I - IIIdom7 - vi7 - IVdom7

It's a pretty strange looking chord progression, but playing through it, the sound is quite natural. So there must be a good explanation for what's going on here, theory-wise.

First of all, let's lay out all the notes being used:

F: F-A-C

A7: A-Db-E-G

Dm7: D-F-A-C

Bb7: Bb-D-F-Ab

Now, let's see which of those notes fall within the F Major Scale:

F-G-Ab-A-Bb-C-Db-D-E

We have two notes out, Ab, and Db. Now, Ab is easy to understand. It's a Minor 3rd, which is the Blues Note in our Major Pentatonic!

That means that we can easily accomodate that note by simply incorporating some blues-style riffing into our improv.

But what about Db? Well, maybe you can see that there's a classic "V7 to i" cadence happening from A7 to Dm7. Since this happens quite frequently, this is an issue we're going to want to get very comfortable with resolving.

We don't have a means of "ignoring" that shift in Key from a theory standpoint, although plenty of songs do simply play around with the tension of the C and Db, it's a valid option to simply make that tension part of your sound. In fact, all those notes together could imply a 7#9 Chord sound, especially if you're playing the C above the rhythm.

However, we can certainly play a melody that supports the chords more if we do make a change on the A7 chord.

• A classic option which I've mentioned previously is to jump to an A7 Arpeggio while on that chord.

• You might also approach it modally - you can often hear players jump to the Mixolydian Mode when a Dominant 7th chord is being played. This will include a lot more notes that aren't in the F Major Scale, giving you a more "outside" sound.

• Another option is simply to sharpen your 5th Scale Degree while the chord is being played, no further effort required!

Lastly, while the notes of Bb7 are covered by the F Blues Pentatonic, you can absolutely outline the chord tones by simply shifting the A7 Arpeggio a step upward. Very cool sound!

Once more, by Roman Numerals we have:

ii - V - I - VI

With chord notation:

ii9 - V7add13 - Imaj7 - VI7addb13

And now let's examine the notes of the chords again:

Dm9: D - F - A - C - E

G7add13: G - B - D - F - E

Cmaj7: C - E - G - B

A7addb13: A - C# - E - G - F

And let's compare those notes to the C Major Scale:

C - C# - D - E - F - G - A - B

As you can see, the first three chords are fully diatonic despite their chord extensions, they all fit neatly within the C Major Scale. But we hit a major snag on the fourth chord in the progression! It's out of key, being used here as a Secondary Dominant leading back to the ii. Moreover, it includes a C#, clearly clashing with our C root.

We can follow a similar approach here as we did in the second example, playing in C Major until we encounter the non-diatonic chord, in this case A7addb13, and then switching to an arpeggio.

You almost certainly don't have a Dominant 7th add flat 13, so it's fine to use a regular Dominant 7th arpeggio and simply omit the b13.

But - if you'd like to try, just add in a Minor 6th Interval where it's convenient to your Dom7 Arpeggio, and take a few minutes to get comfortable with that shape.

(You can even use the A7addb13 as a jumping off point for the Altered Scale, but that's beyond the scope of this lesson!)

If you're able to get a feel for the b13, I'd like to highlight here an important concept for any improviser, which is phrasing. So far, we've talked quite a lot about playing over each individual chord, but this is a chord progression. What matters is how the music feels, not specifically what we do during each chord.

So, when you're playing over the VI chord here, I want you to be thinking about tension and release. This chord is noticeably more tense than the others, and each time we move back to the ii, it should feel like a weight has been lifted. We can make that happen by accentuating the "out" notes, and then moving them back into key.

For example, try ending on a C# during the VI, and following up with a half-step up or down to C or D once the rhythm returns to the ii. Since both C and D are in the chord, they're both a strong choice to follow up with.

This concept works well with many different cadences and chord progressions, so start looking for opportunities to accentuate changes in your improvising! Being able to think about the chord changes on this level will make a huge difference in your playing.