1 Chord Progression, 5 Levels of Complexity

this video was sponsored by HD piano stick around to find out how you can watch the exclusive part two to this video with HD piano how do you make a simple core progression sound more impressive more detailed and developed well today I'm going to show you by taking a super Common Core progression and running it through five increasingly more sophisticated levels of complexity so let's start here on level one with the basic form of the core progression what's sometimes called the 50s core progression it's been used in loads and loads of different songs it's just in the key of C C A minor f and g and this is our level one just the simple three note Triads major and minor chords so how can we add more detail to this well level two is going to be all about adding what you could either call chord extensions or color tones extra notes into the basic chords to add an extra Dimension so for example we could do [Music] this did you see what I did there so instead of C major we had C ad n where we've got the 9th degree there the D or what you could call the second degree it could be C add 2 but C add9 is what's more commonly referred to as then we had this chord so this is a minor 7 we've still got the essential a minor there that we have four but we've added this G here the seventh degree then with the F chord once again we went with the ad n got the ad n there the G and with the G chord instead of going for a normal G major Triad I went for this which is a g sus two sus two because rather than having the third we've got the second degree there instead suspending the Third so that was level two now let's take this to level three so this level is all going to be about passing chords now a passing chord is what the name would suggest a chord that you add in as you pass between different chords so rather than going for example straight from C to a minor I could do this did you see what I did there between the C and the a minor chord I added that chord g over b or G in first inversion and I chose that chord because I wanted to bridge the gap between the two main chords so between C and A minor we've got G over B and then we need to get to the F chord so we could add another passing chord in here I'm going to add this chord c over G so once again choosing a chord that's built off of the degree between the two main chords we've got a minor and F and we can bridge the gap with the note that's between them G so we have c g over B A minor C over g f and then we need to get from F to G so that is going to sound like this did you see what I did there once again applied the same logic I want a chord that occupies the space between the one we're currently on F and the destination G well between f and g there is f Shar right or g flat depending on what you want to call it so I did a diminished chord built off of that degree F diminished that led us up to G and then we don't necessarily need to put a passing chord between G and C to complete the loop we can just go straight back to C and continue from there so of course we can apply this process these different levels these different approaches to Harmony to any core progression not just this 1 64 five that I'm doing in this video so if you'd like to see me apply these same processes these same approaches to Harmon to a different core progression namely the zepher song core progression the core progression used in the Red Hot Chili Pepper song zepher song then I've actually made another video a part two to this video that's available on HD piano HD piano is a fantastic service for learning how to play the piano and you can watch that exclusive part two video by following the link Down Below in the description all right so now we're going to go to level four and level four is going to be about secondary dominance so a secondary dominant is the dominant chord of a different chord in the key so what does that mean well the normal dominant what you could think of as the primary dominant is the fifth chord of the key so in the key of C the fifth chord 1 2 3 4 5 is the chord built on the fifth degree G and it sort of Acts to guide us back to that c that's what dominant chords do they guide us so a secondary dominant is the chord that's a fif away of a different chord in the key for example let's start our chord progression with C the next chord in the chord progression is a minor right so we can get to that a minor by using the secondary dominant so we're now going C and then the E7 guides us to a minor and now we need to get to F well what's the dominant chord of F Well it's C7 so if we do a C7 takes us to F and what about to get to the G chord well we could do the dominant chord of G which is D7 and just to make sure everything is dominant and powerful and pulling us back home let's add a dominant seven to the G chord as well to pull us back to where we started and we get back to C [Music] right and that takes us to level five and for this last level of complexity we're really going to double down on what we were doing in level four well now we're going to not only add the five of the destination cord we're going to add the two of the destination chord so before each chord we're going to go 251 let me show you what that looks like in practice so once again we're going to start on C okay then our destination is a minor right but rather than going straight there we're going to have the two and the five of that destination called a minor the two of a minor is B we could either do B minor or B minor U flat five but we're going to do B minor and then we're going to have the five of a minor which is e and you can notice I've added seven to both of these as well which is sort of just PA of the course when we're talking about these sort of core progressions adding the seventh finin is always going to add that extra level of pull into the core progression so rather than going straight from C to a minor we're going to go C B minor E A minor like that 2 5 1 and then we're going to apply that same process to the the next chord we now need to get to F so we can go 2 5 1 to F and then finally we need to get to G so once again we're going to have the two the five and the one of G and I'm going to have a dominant seven from the G to make sure that it brings us back around to where we started on the C so let's put that all together it's going to sound like [Music] this [Music] so of course with these different levels of complexity they're not like better versions it's not necessarily an improvement each time they're just different options different flavors different avenues that you can take the harmony down depending on what you're trying to achieve so I'm going to finish off now with an extra bonus level six and all I'm going to do for this is take what I did in level five but rather than just adding sevenths to each cord I'm going to add different upper cord extensions like nines and also altered extensions as well like flat nines that sort of thing you'll see what I [Music] mean [Music] so hopefully that's shown you how whether you're dealing with a very simple but effective chord progression or you're dealing with a more sophisticated chord progression the essential movement the essential purpose of the core progression isn't different they're both just serving to accompany The Melodies up above and I know at least myself as a player when I'm playing a more comp complex chord progression like this I'm still thinking in quite basic terms I'm still thinking we're on one and then we're moving to the six so do let me know in the comments which level you preferred the most and also don't forget you can see the part two of this video exclusively on HD piano by following the link Down Below in the description

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 513,463

Keywords: chord progression, common chords, how to improve chords, complex chords, levels of chords, music theory, secondary dominants, 2 5 1

Id: C_i2axaWzaE

Length: 11min 19sec (679 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 15 2024