Minor Chord Progressions

[No name]

Every book i've read goes over just the major chord progressions. I'm just now actually figuring out there are minor chord progressions. I see that it is the following:

min dim MAJ min min MAJ MAJ
(This is the natural minor)

My question is really quite simple, why is it that most basic theory books never cover this? It just leaves me totally confused that you would only have the Major Chord progressions in there. Is there a reason for this?

One simple question, which minor chord progression do you prefer the most? Natural,Harmonic, or Melodic?

Personally i'm very glad to have figured this all out now, because most of the music I write has a dark feel to it, my music has no sense of humor Obviously the minor key is known for a more darker sound.

[pw]

I prefer harmonic minor, but it all depends on the context.

[nuffink]

Every book i've read goes over just the major chord progressions. I'm just not actually figuring out there are minor chord progressions. I see that it is the following:

min dim MAJ min min MAJ MAJ dim min
(This is the natural minor)

My question is really quite simple, why is it that most basic theory books never cover this? It just leaves me totally confused that you would only have the Major Chord progressions in there. Is there a reason for this?

One simple question, which minor chord progression do you prefer the most? Natural,Harmonic, or Melodic?

Personally i'm very glad to have figured this all out now, because most of the music I write has a dark feel to it, my music has no sense of humor Obviously the minor key is known for a more darker sound.

You seem a bit confused about what a progression is. Any chords of any kind played one after the other is a progression. Of course there are some progressions which are known to be more effective than others. Wiki has a small list here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_progressions

Your list of chords from the natural minor (min dim MAJ min min MAJ MAJ dim min) is partially correct, it just get's a bit weird at the end. What you're referring to are the diatonic chords of the scale. For natural minor they go 'min dim MAJ min min MAJ MAJ'. There can only be seven as there are only seven notes in the scale (same for the other two minor scales and the major scale - seven notes with a diatonic chord built upon each hence seven chords).

For the other scales they are...

Major - 'MAJ min min MAJ MAJ min dim'
Melodic minor - 'min min AUG MAJ MAJ dim dim'
Harmonic minor - 'min dim AUG min MAJ MAJ dim'

n.b. Diatonic means entirely composed of notes from the scale.
AUG is an augmented chord - Root, Major 3rd and Augmented 5th. C aug = C,E,G#

[No name]

Oops, I was looking at the chart and going back and forth to it and my original post, so I messed up. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

[jopy]

just an additional thought--the chords in your pure natural minor scale aren't really functional harmony, they're more like modal scales because there's no leading tone that pushes you to the tonic. that's why the harmonic minor scale is used so often to give a more functional resolution. in traditional harmony the most conventional cadences in minor are from iv-V-i; in jazz it's often ii7(b5)-V7-i.

for the record, modal music is extremely great and perfect and i love it and make it every chance i get, so it's not a question of it being wrong, but it's not the same thing as the chords in a major key.

i hope that didn't make things muddier.

[icelizarrd]

As for why they usually cover major, personally I think that's just part of the slight bias for major scales that the classical music tradition has. In many choirs and singing classes they always do vocal exercises in major, for example.

[Toxikator]

As I understand it, the reason that Major scales are covered more heavily is that they're covered FIRST, and the reason for THAT is primarily because they're EASIER.

Of course, that's a simplification, but with the forms of the minor scales and what that does to the harmony, it's usually easier to root concepts in Major and then study the minor once you're comfortable with the basics.

[Sascha Franck]

As much as I hate it (j/k), Toxikator is spot on.
A whole truckload of major progressions can be covered using ONE SINGLE scale and the relevant chords. That's indeed easy.
With minor keys and progressions, this will almost never work. And it's even getting a lot worse once you mix things up. You may have a (really common) minor progression such as Amin7 - D7. Fine, "Oyo Come Va" all the way. Suits our major scale's IInd and Vs degrees just fine (in that case, G major).
But, what about the E7 which might occur all of a sudden (we're not in "Oyo Come Va" territory anymore)? You're f**ked! Another scale/key, just for one lousy chord in our progression.
In addition, there's progressions mxing up natural minor, dorian minor and harmonic minor. Or, even worse, some melodic minor degrees.

Fortunately, chord stuff is still more or less easily covered. But never even start to think about improvising...

[Toxikator]

As much as I hate it (j/k), Toxikator is spot on.

You.

For non-improvisors, the problems with improvisation translate directly to melodic diatonicism; if the 7th isn't being sounded, how can you be sure whether to sharpen or flatten it in your melody?

It's a problem I struggle with CONSTANTLY, since I love the harmonic minor form to death but certain chords (in particular the ImM7) just DON'T voice right. So, in particular in tetrachordal harmony, you're trying to use the #7 but the chords use the b7, etc...

[VicDiesel]

You may have a (really common) minor progression such as Amin7 - D7. Fine, "Oyo Come Va" all the way. Suits our major scale's IInd and Vs degrees just fine (in that case, G major).

Hm. If there is a clear I-IV feel to the Am-D7 progression, you should not interpret it as II-V of another tonic. The tonic is A.

But, what about the E7 which might occur all of a sudden (we're not in "Oyo Come Va" territory anymore)? You're f**ked! Another scale/key, just for one lousy chord in our progression.

Which means you should have started with melodic minor (ascending).

But yeah, minor is complicated. Suppose you wanted to derive all your chords from the melodic minor ascending, then you'd have an augmented chord on III (the C in your example). That clearly doesn't happen.

Compositions that use minor, use melodic fragments that are from some minor scale or other, but they do not stick to one minor scale through the whole piece. So at any given moment you can harmonize the melody however you see fit, as long as it doesn't clash with the melody.

It sounds a bit weird if you alternate minor and major chords on the IV and V too quickly, but both variants are allowed.

And no sillyness like dim or aug chords are necessary.

Victor.

[MadBrain]

Minor isn't that complicated. I usually just build on degrees of aeolian mode (natural minor) - or sometimes dorian (especially for the melody), except for V, which is usually some flavour of V7 in cadences, but Vm7 in other places (such as a VImaj7 Vm7 IVm7 progression). That means the leading note only appears in cadences, but that's not a problem since it's pretty dissonant elsewhere anyways.

Minor gives a couple of opportunities to have fun with cadences: you can build up a progression/cadence that strongly suggest going to major (by using Vsus b9 for instance), and then surprise! resolve it in minor. Or, alternatively, use the "80s" cadence, where you lead up to a cadence (by coming from VImaj7 for instance), and then use "Vm7#5" Vm7 (Vm7#5 is used here for the lack of a better chord symbol. Other ways to write it would include Vm7b6, IIIsus2/V, VIIsus4/V, etc....) - surprise, the cadence is a minor chord, and is thus actually weaker than expected (which is why you need to accompany it with lots of drums and orch hits ).

One common feature of minor harmony is heavy use of the VI(maj7) degree, which has a few desirable caracteristics: it has a good sentimental tone, it's simple and pretty consonant, it leads directly to V (you could say it's the tritonic substitution of II), it forms an easy chromatic/descending bassline (I VII VI V, I #VII VII #VI VI V etc...)... In fact, it's strong enough that it sometimes appears in major (as bVI ofc).

[Sascha Franck]

Hm. If there is a clear I-IV feel to the Am-D7 progression, you should not interpret it as II-V of another tonic. The tonic is A.

Why not? It makes sense, a lot even. Learn G major and know A dorian as well.
Of course, once you improvise over it, you need to change your "reference" notes. Just as with all things more or less modal

Which means you should have started with melodic minor (ascending).

No way. Listen to "Oyo Come Va" and tell me where there's a SINGLE melodic minor reference.
The Am is an Am7 and there's Gs all over the place.
So, in such cases, if all of a sudden there *is* a dominant (in "Oyo Come Va" there isn't, but there's tons of others that are based on that very dorian I-V progression), you'd have to change scales.

But yeah, minor is complicated. Suppose you wanted to derive all your chords from the melodic minor ascending, then you'd have an augmented chord on III (the C in your example). That clearly doesn't happen.

Oh, it does indeed happen - but more in some advanced modal things.

Some more words about that particular progression. To write it down again, it's:
|| Am7 D7 | E7 % ||
Ok, in case we would ignore the 7th on the Am (or play it without any 7th), melodic minor (ascending, if you want) would fit the bill. But most often, there is a 7th. And probably even some sus4 > 3 movement on the D7.
Anyways, let's then look at the E7. I think we can happily agree that the entire progression is something rather common in jazz and whatever derivative styles. Now, show my any jazzer, who, when it comes to the E7, would actually use a 9th, for both chords and improvisation. Most likely, the E7 would at least be treated with a b9, resulting in a HM5 (harmonic minor, 5th degree, so we're in A harmonic minor) scale/key.
Alternatively, one might use the altered scale - which, technically (especially in our all so tempered universe), can be seen as the 7th degree of melodic minor. Theoretically that approach is bullshit, but regardless how you treat the E7alt, there's no "common" scale with the Am and D anymore.

And that's the entire thing about the difficulties when dealing with minor progressions.
In rather simple major progressions, you do at least have a chance to treat all chords as degrees of a common "parent" scale. In most minor progressions, as soon as a dominant chord is involved, this usually doesn't work any longer at all.

Compositions that use minor, use melodic fragments that are from some minor scale or other, but they do not stick to one minor scale through the whole piece. So at any given moment you can harmonize the melody however you see fit, as long as it doesn't clash with the melody.

Exactly. Fwiw, this is working as well in major.
Take a simple IIm7-V7-Imaj7 progression. In pop you'd probably leave the V7 "untouched", treating it the mixolydian way (for me, modes are a nice way to describe chords as well), but as soon as it gets a tad more latin-, soul- or even jazz-ish, there's high chances one or the other option note of the V7 would be altered (and probably even the 5th). In that case, the given chord sometimes can't even be treated as "borrowed from a minor scale" anymore (see my example for the E7 above).
For me, with chords, it's all not much of a problem. But improvising over any such stuff is really tough.

[Km7]

Well, one could also "complicate" one's life in major - by usage of harmonic and melodic major.

[Sascha Franck]

Well, one could also "complicate" one's life in major - by usage of harmonic and melodic major.

Sure. In almost any even remotely "jazzy" context, that's happening all the time. "Oh, a dominant chord?!? Let's alter the shit out of it!"
Really, this is what makes jazz improvisation the sophisticated thing it is.
I-VI-II-V in major. All fine, as long as it's folk, pop or whatever. Chords will be:
Imaj7 - VImin7 - IImin7 - V7.
But throw that at a jazz player. All of a sudden things will look like:
Imaj7 - VI7alt - IImin7 - V7alt.
Or even like:
Imaj7 - VI7alt - II7alt - V7alt (well, II7alt isn't that often used, but still...).
Or, with substitutions:
Imaj7 - VI7alt - bVI7 - V7alt
Or:
Imaj7 - bIII7 - IImin7 - bII7
Or, with "abused" inversions:
Imaj7 - bIIdim7 - IImin7 - bII7
Or even, with the I replaced by IIImin7:
IIImin7 - bIII7 - IImin7 - bII7 (neat choice in a turnaround, btw).

Or any combination of them...

Then add the various ways to alter dominants. They don't necessarily have to be "fully" altered or just HM5 (harmonic minor, 5th degree), no, there's V7/13/b9's and V7/b13/9's, happily taking us to HT/WT or WT territory. Or to some funny melodic minor derivates.

Great if you play chords, as it's really giving you a lot of choice, still nice for some melodic development, a horrible amount of scale work once you even try to improvise over it.

Btw, if anybody wants a small audio snipplet of all the progressions mentioned above in one take, I'll happily post some.

[Caleb]

Ah Jazz. I'd love to be there using and abusing these things like that.

Take me away to Jazzland.

Regards
Caleb