On the 27th page of Phil DeGreg’s Jazz Keyboard Harmony I find the common chord progression (or turnaround) I△ ♭iiiᵒ ii⁷ ♭II△.

After a few weeks of practicing in all 12 keys, today I note the following patterns.

  • The chord tones are at least somewhat diatonic to the chord and associated scales. This could be more systematic, but basically I added those that I could “bear” in abstraction.
  • The scale tones refer to the scale of the I chord.
  • intervals are always either whole-tones (W) or half-tones (H), unless indicated otherwise.
  • parentheses denote optional notes
  • NOTE: It is not clear how best to refer to the chord tones in a diminished 7 chord.

Descending Patterns

  • Rows composed of whole-tones
    • 1, 2, and 3 form a scale.
    • 1 and 2 form a complete whole-tone scale; there is a half-step between rows 2 and 3.
  • Rows 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 form a scale. This one could be useful. Covers a wide range of colors. Suggests mixolydian bebop scale at first.
  • Rows composed of half-tones
    • 8: diatonic
    • 9: airy, palatable dissonance
    • 10: dissonant, esp. on ♭iiiᵒ; parallel fifths with bass
  • Row 11 originally confused me with Soulive (see below).
# intervals chord tones scale tones
1 W W W 5 9 ♭9 1 5 4 ♭3 ♭2
2 W W W 7 ♭5 11 3 7 6 5 4
3 W W W 3 (M)7 7 13 3 2 1 ♭7
4 H W H 1 ♭13 5 5 1 7 6 ♭6
5 W H H 5 9 9 9 5 4 3 ♭3
6 W H H 9 ♭♭7 13 13 2 1 7 ♭7
7 H H W 13 11 11 3 6 ♭6 5 4
8 H H H 3 1 1 1 3 ♭3 2 ♭2
9 H H H ♯11 9 9 9 ♯4 4 3 ♭3
10 H H H 7 P5 5 5 7 ♭7 6 ♭6
11 H H (W) 5 ♭3 ♭3 (9) 5 ♯4 4 (♭3)

Ascending Patterns

# intervals chord tones scale tones
1 W W H 1 (M)7 9 3 1 2 3 4
2 H H H 9 1 9 3 2 ♭3 3 4
3 H W H 3 9 11 5 3 4 5 ♭6
4 W H H ♯11 11 5 ♭13 ♯4 ♯5 6 ♭7
5 W W H 5 ♭5 13 7 5 6 7 1
6 W H H 13 ♭13 7 (1) 6 7 1 (♭2)
7 H W H 7 ♭♭7 1 9 7 1 2 ♭3

Another progression, from Soulive - Turn It Out

I spent a bunch of time confusing myself by thinking that one of the above patterns could be found at the beginning of Soulive’s Turn It Out. It turns out that this classic composition begins with a loosely related progression: I△ ♭iiᵒ ii⁷ Vsus♭9, also leveraging passing diminished chords. The melody — using this other progression — goes like this:

intervals chord tones scale tones
↓m2 ↓m2 ↑m3 7 ᵒ7 5 11 7 ♭7 6 1

I’m actually very proud of myself for getting this; there was a time when I could not figure this out!

Not only that, but it turns out I can even easily pick out the melody now.

Man, what an epic track, epic solos. These guys built a subculture and inspired a generation. Definitely the band I’ve seen the most number of times in my life (unless I count UMass Lowell’s lowercase p).

I think this might be the next one to practice.