ripock
Well-known member
As I promised myself, I am going to be annotating a few of my favorite blues progressions. I originally found these in the Glen Rose workbooks I purchased a few years ago. The first one is unique to the workbooks (that is, I haven’t run across it but I don’t imagine that it was invented for the workbook), whereas the second one I’ve seen on other jazz websites.
As an aside I need to mention that the Glen Rose books are great, but I outgrew the methodology. Rose’s pedagogical stance is to keep things simple so that there is no intimidation to approaching jazz. However I wanted a little more depth in terms of why we play what we do. I don’t mean to belittle Glen. I have spoken with him and I know he has been, and is, a musician and educator for decades. He knows everything I want to learn...he just hasn’t put that knowledge into the workbooks.
At first, this progression looks hard just because the shapes are different. We are used to our dom7 shapes, but when you ponder it...it has know harder to make one shape as it is another (aside from the stretch of some shapes).
This progression only uses two shapes, whereas a typical blues progression in C uses three.
Bar 1: I dom13. This patently sets up the progression by establishing the root to which the deviation of the IV chord and the V chord all long to resolve to. I have heard it whimsically said that the IV and V are separated from and desire to return to the I chord just as in a life buffeted by the blues we long to return to god. I don’t know if that’s true but it is a pretty thought. Technically speaking, to play the dom13, I use the shape that has its root on the A string, except on the A string I play the tonic versus the 9th which results in a different voicing of the chord; I do it because it is easier.
Bar 2: IV dom9. This is the “quick change” that is a staple of jazz. Normally the first 4 bars are all the I chord. But this quick change has its benefits. First of all, it previews the deviation which is to come in bars 6 and 7. Also it presents a different narrative. In the normal blues progression the first 4 bars are the I chord which establishes the sound to which we deviate from and ultimately return to. In the quick change narrative, instead of the I chord asserting itself in a straight forward manner, the I chord announces itself, the IV chord intervenes, then the I chord re-takes center stage. This represents more of a tension and a conflict. The I chord and its solidity is interrupted by the IV chord and only with difficulty re-establishes itself...but the IV chord is still there and it will re-emerge just as self-doubt can obtrude itself on our confidence. Technically, I use the dom9 shape which is rooted on the E string.
Bar 3 and 4: I dom13. Technical note—since I don’t use the pinky in my inversion of the dom13 chord it is free to spice things up a bit by playing the 9 or the #9 or the b9 on certain beats to create some variations of sound.
Bar 5 and 6: IV dom9. Here the IV does finally take over and pulls us away from the root chord
Bar 7 and 8: the walkdown from the I. You play the I dom13 chord for half a bar, then descend a fret and play the shape to complete bar 7, and then for bar 8 you descend another fret and play the chord and then descend again and play the chord. In a traditional blues progression these bars are normally devoted to the I chord. In that traditional narrative, the I establishes itself for 4 bars, the IV interrupts for 2, and then the I re-takes control for 2. In that narrative, there is a conflict but it is rather black and white with either the I or the IV in command. In this alternative narrative, the I chord briefly regains its primacy for the first half of bar 7, but then for a bar and a half the shape moves away from the root as if the situation is slipping from the power of the I chord. Again this musical narrative resonates with our own lives. We often find that something, like the IV chord, shakes our foundation from its solid moorings. We take action but for whatever reason that action is ineffectual or at least only temporary and the situation slips between our fingers.
Bar 9: II dom13
Bar 10: V dom9
These two bars are going to require some explication and I hope I actually have the power of articulation that is required. As far as the story line goes, bar 9 is the darkness before the dawn. It is farther away from the I chord than any other chord in the progression. And bar 10 is the beginning of the return to the I chord and that resolution. Again, this works as a reflection of our life. I have often been involved in a crisis which seemed to get worse and worse, and when I despaired that things couldn’t work out, then suddenly something happens to change everything.
Here’s how this works musically. The II chord seems random, but it isn’t. A normal blues progression involves the I, the IV, and the V chords. In the key of C that would be C, F, and G. Now, focus on the G. In the key of G, what is the V chord? It is D. Therefore D is the V chord of G, which is the V chord of C. D is also the II chord in the key of C. So the II chord is the V chord of the V chord. However alienated the V chord is from the I chord, the II chord is even more removed. And so bar 9 represents a great distance from the I chord and bar 10 shows progress toward the I chord, which is to be realized in the next bar
Bar 11: I dom13, for half the bar. Then move up three frets and play the dom13 shape.
Bar 12: Another walk down. For the first half of the bar move down a fret and play the dom13 shape. Move down another fret and we are back at the I chord where we play it again.
I don’t know if this way of looking at the blues is orthodox or heterodox. I don’t really talk to others about this. Either my views are so universal that they deserve no comment or they are a bit outlandish. Again, I don’t know.
However, I commit them to writing because I wanted to illustrate how I get around being a robot.
In a recent thread about the blues, beginners were cautioned against being robotic in playing the blues. As my writing shows, I totally agree with that but I think it is completely inappropriate advice for a beginner. We don’t expect a beginning keyboard student to be Scarlatti and we shouldn’t expect a beginner in the blues to be accomplished.
However, once a beginner is ready to put some nuance in the structure that he or she has been playing, this bunch of writing shows one way of doing it. By making the blues progression a narrative, you as a player can invest certain chords with an appropriate emotion by using tricks such as triplets or a masterful use of silence or whatever. Taken in this light the progression is: I chord (the perfect situation where you are centered and nothing is wrong), IV chord (something bad), V chord (something worse), and II (the worst thing).
And if that is still too abstract to work, you can certainly vivify the progression with a concrete situation. Most people use love and its betrayal as the theme of the blues. However, my wife is a wonderful person; I mentally appreciate the love angle of the blues, but I don’t feel it. But something that does make me blue is how unfair and capricious life is. I have done everything I was supposed to do. I was a good person, I received my education and training, I worked hard...but I didn’t get my reward. It is as if I fulfilled my end of the bargain, but reality welched. I wasn’t in the right place at the right time or I didn’t know the right person, and because of that I am not living the easy life. However someone else may think of it, that’s what gives me the blues. And what I would do musically is think of three levels of dissatisfaction that I have with this topic and associate those dissatisfactions with the IV, V, and II chords. Then when I play those chords I try to play them in a way that invokes my attitude.
I should mention that most people do this with words; they express their feelings with their song. I don’t like to sing. I try to do it with the chords. However this can’t really be done with the chords since chords are just chords. So I loosen up the structure. Instead of 12 bars, I think of it as 12 parts of a story. And sometimes I take liberties with the timing of the bars and extend them with finger picking or other techniques which lend themselves to what I’m trying to do. Since this is all a bit improvisational, sometimes it doesn’t work. Music after all, needs to have a certain modicum of repetition to be significant to an audience. This improvisation is sort of like pre-writing and if I going to actually publish it as a song, I would definitely narrow the scope of my whimsies to give an audience some footholds to use.
There we go. That is just my attempt to show to myself that the I IV V progression isn’t so simple and boring, and that it is worthy to be the most frequent progression in jazz. And I haven’t even touched upon muddying the waters by using different chord qualities such as add6’s or maj7’s. Nor have I alluded to using different voicings for the chords. This aspect, in particular, is very interesting. Different inversions have different pitches and those pitches seem to have associations of their own. After all, the difference between a question and an indicative statement is merely a question of pitch and a higher pitch seems to connote a “big finish” at the end of a song. However I am getting into a barrel of monkeys which should probably not be disturbed right now.
As an aside I need to mention that the Glen Rose books are great, but I outgrew the methodology. Rose’s pedagogical stance is to keep things simple so that there is no intimidation to approaching jazz. However I wanted a little more depth in terms of why we play what we do. I don’t mean to belittle Glen. I have spoken with him and I know he has been, and is, a musician and educator for decades. He knows everything I want to learn...he just hasn’t put that knowledge into the workbooks.
At first, this progression looks hard just because the shapes are different. We are used to our dom7 shapes, but when you ponder it...it has know harder to make one shape as it is another (aside from the stretch of some shapes).
This progression only uses two shapes, whereas a typical blues progression in C uses three.
Bar 1: I dom13. This patently sets up the progression by establishing the root to which the deviation of the IV chord and the V chord all long to resolve to. I have heard it whimsically said that the IV and V are separated from and desire to return to the I chord just as in a life buffeted by the blues we long to return to god. I don’t know if that’s true but it is a pretty thought. Technically speaking, to play the dom13, I use the shape that has its root on the A string, except on the A string I play the tonic versus the 9th which results in a different voicing of the chord; I do it because it is easier.
Bar 2: IV dom9. This is the “quick change” that is a staple of jazz. Normally the first 4 bars are all the I chord. But this quick change has its benefits. First of all, it previews the deviation which is to come in bars 6 and 7. Also it presents a different narrative. In the normal blues progression the first 4 bars are the I chord which establishes the sound to which we deviate from and ultimately return to. In the quick change narrative, instead of the I chord asserting itself in a straight forward manner, the I chord announces itself, the IV chord intervenes, then the I chord re-takes center stage. This represents more of a tension and a conflict. The I chord and its solidity is interrupted by the IV chord and only with difficulty re-establishes itself...but the IV chord is still there and it will re-emerge just as self-doubt can obtrude itself on our confidence. Technically, I use the dom9 shape which is rooted on the E string.
Bar 3 and 4: I dom13. Technical note—since I don’t use the pinky in my inversion of the dom13 chord it is free to spice things up a bit by playing the 9 or the #9 or the b9 on certain beats to create some variations of sound.
Bar 5 and 6: IV dom9. Here the IV does finally take over and pulls us away from the root chord
Bar 7 and 8: the walkdown from the I. You play the I dom13 chord for half a bar, then descend a fret and play the shape to complete bar 7, and then for bar 8 you descend another fret and play the chord and then descend again and play the chord. In a traditional blues progression these bars are normally devoted to the I chord. In that traditional narrative, the I establishes itself for 4 bars, the IV interrupts for 2, and then the I re-takes control for 2. In that narrative, there is a conflict but it is rather black and white with either the I or the IV in command. In this alternative narrative, the I chord briefly regains its primacy for the first half of bar 7, but then for a bar and a half the shape moves away from the root as if the situation is slipping from the power of the I chord. Again this musical narrative resonates with our own lives. We often find that something, like the IV chord, shakes our foundation from its solid moorings. We take action but for whatever reason that action is ineffectual or at least only temporary and the situation slips between our fingers.
Bar 9: II dom13
Bar 10: V dom9
These two bars are going to require some explication and I hope I actually have the power of articulation that is required. As far as the story line goes, bar 9 is the darkness before the dawn. It is farther away from the I chord than any other chord in the progression. And bar 10 is the beginning of the return to the I chord and that resolution. Again, this works as a reflection of our life. I have often been involved in a crisis which seemed to get worse and worse, and when I despaired that things couldn’t work out, then suddenly something happens to change everything.
Here’s how this works musically. The II chord seems random, but it isn’t. A normal blues progression involves the I, the IV, and the V chords. In the key of C that would be C, F, and G. Now, focus on the G. In the key of G, what is the V chord? It is D. Therefore D is the V chord of G, which is the V chord of C. D is also the II chord in the key of C. So the II chord is the V chord of the V chord. However alienated the V chord is from the I chord, the II chord is even more removed. And so bar 9 represents a great distance from the I chord and bar 10 shows progress toward the I chord, which is to be realized in the next bar
Bar 11: I dom13, for half the bar. Then move up three frets and play the dom13 shape.
Bar 12: Another walk down. For the first half of the bar move down a fret and play the dom13 shape. Move down another fret and we are back at the I chord where we play it again.
I don’t know if this way of looking at the blues is orthodox or heterodox. I don’t really talk to others about this. Either my views are so universal that they deserve no comment or they are a bit outlandish. Again, I don’t know.
However, I commit them to writing because I wanted to illustrate how I get around being a robot.
In a recent thread about the blues, beginners were cautioned against being robotic in playing the blues. As my writing shows, I totally agree with that but I think it is completely inappropriate advice for a beginner. We don’t expect a beginning keyboard student to be Scarlatti and we shouldn’t expect a beginner in the blues to be accomplished.
However, once a beginner is ready to put some nuance in the structure that he or she has been playing, this bunch of writing shows one way of doing it. By making the blues progression a narrative, you as a player can invest certain chords with an appropriate emotion by using tricks such as triplets or a masterful use of silence or whatever. Taken in this light the progression is: I chord (the perfect situation where you are centered and nothing is wrong), IV chord (something bad), V chord (something worse), and II (the worst thing).
And if that is still too abstract to work, you can certainly vivify the progression with a concrete situation. Most people use love and its betrayal as the theme of the blues. However, my wife is a wonderful person; I mentally appreciate the love angle of the blues, but I don’t feel it. But something that does make me blue is how unfair and capricious life is. I have done everything I was supposed to do. I was a good person, I received my education and training, I worked hard...but I didn’t get my reward. It is as if I fulfilled my end of the bargain, but reality welched. I wasn’t in the right place at the right time or I didn’t know the right person, and because of that I am not living the easy life. However someone else may think of it, that’s what gives me the blues. And what I would do musically is think of three levels of dissatisfaction that I have with this topic and associate those dissatisfactions with the IV, V, and II chords. Then when I play those chords I try to play them in a way that invokes my attitude.
I should mention that most people do this with words; they express their feelings with their song. I don’t like to sing. I try to do it with the chords. However this can’t really be done with the chords since chords are just chords. So I loosen up the structure. Instead of 12 bars, I think of it as 12 parts of a story. And sometimes I take liberties with the timing of the bars and extend them with finger picking or other techniques which lend themselves to what I’m trying to do. Since this is all a bit improvisational, sometimes it doesn’t work. Music after all, needs to have a certain modicum of repetition to be significant to an audience. This improvisation is sort of like pre-writing and if I going to actually publish it as a song, I would definitely narrow the scope of my whimsies to give an audience some footholds to use.
There we go. That is just my attempt to show to myself that the I IV V progression isn’t so simple and boring, and that it is worthy to be the most frequent progression in jazz. And I haven’t even touched upon muddying the waters by using different chord qualities such as add6’s or maj7’s. Nor have I alluded to using different voicings for the chords. This aspect, in particular, is very interesting. Different inversions have different pitches and those pitches seem to have associations of their own. After all, the difference between a question and an indicative statement is merely a question of pitch and a higher pitch seems to connote a “big finish” at the end of a song. However I am getting into a barrel of monkeys which should probably not be disturbed right now.