C -> E -> F and C -> D -> F

[neueliteratur]

Hello KVR.

I was messing around on the piano and did these progressions:

1) C E7 F C

2) C D7 F C.

2 seconds later I felt the frustration taking me over.

Why does this sound good?

Why does this work? I have no knowledge to theoretically explain the movemnts "E7 -> F" and "D7 -> F".

Help?

[Musicologo]

They work because they are smooth movements, that means: only contiguous and common notes.

E7 - F :

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

D7 - F:

D-C
F#-F
A-A
C-C

[MikeInOttawa]

Why does this sound good?

Why does this work? I have no knowledge to theoretically explain the movemnts "E7 -> F" and "D7 -> F".

Help?

Maybe because the F chord is a resolution of the previous 7ths. 7ths have an incomplete quality to them. Don't know how to say it technically, but the 7ths are what make the Fs.

[DrawMusic]

#1: E7 -> F is a "deceptive cadence", which is when a dom7 chord, instead of resolving to its usual target chord a fourth higher, resolves to a similar chord just a step higher.

In this case, the usual target of the E7 chord would be Am. F-major has most of the same notes as Am so it works as a deceptive cadence for the E7 chord.

[DrawMusic]

"2) C D7 F C"

This works because of the strong chromatic line (individual notes in the chords):

G (resolved) -> F# (highly unresolved) -> F (less unresolved) -> E (resolved).

[Ogg Vorbis]

This one is pretty good too. Kind of 60s sounding but still heard sometimes...

C Eb7 F G

[kbaccki]

Another common linear movement thing in old timey jazz and blues is to use dom7 in place of your diatonic min7 chords, e.g. in a turnaround:

III7 - VI7 - II7 - V7 - Imaj7

For example: E7 - A7 - D7 - G7 - Cmaj7

It's a movement in 4ths, and if you break the chords down you get a nice linear movement with the 3's and 7's:

Code: Select all

E   => E  => D  => D
G#  => G  => F# => F (3 and 7 tones)
B   => A  => A  => G
D   => C# => C  => B (3 and 7 tones)

And moreso if you throw in some b9 tones in there to replace roots.

That type of turnaround works well after a Imaj7 - vi7 - ii7 - V7... gives it sort of a temporary key modulation.

There are lots of reasons why that sort of stuff works, but I think in general you just need to break out of your diatonic bonds sometimes, and just go with what sounds good. It also help to realize that songs can exist in more than one key, even if they're not explicitly written that way.

[jsaras]

The secret is in the voiceleading. You can go to any structure from any structure if you know how voicelead them correctly. If you have that skill, you do NOT have to fit your progressions into the traditional key-centered approach.

Your example is a good one. This MP3 has C-Db7-F-C, C-D7-F-C, C-Eb7-F-C and C-E7-F-C. http://tinyurl.com/25vtl4s

I snuck in a couple of passing notes here and there, but the voiceleading between the chord structures is correct (no parallel voiceleading) in every case, and they all sound equally good. These techniques are covered very thoroughly in the first two books of the Equal Interval System.

J

[psenior]

Lots of good answers here. To me, E7 naturally falls within the key of C6-diminished, so it's always going to sound good in your example. Also, as one previous poster said, it's common to change a minor 7 chord to a dominant 7 chord. So Dm7 was changed to D7, which also sounds perfectly OK in your progression. So what it goes to F instead of G?

Dominant chords are called dominant chords for a reason. They're everywhere. They sound good all over the place. You can play all kinds of creative melodies over them and sound good. Tons of blues based songs and "I Got Rhythm" based tunes are composed of 100% dominant chords. Not to mention many funk tunes, whether they sit on 1 dominant chord the whole time or cycle through 2 - 4 dominant chords repeatedly.

[jof]

Hello KVR.
2) C D7 F C.

The Beatles used this chord progression in Eight Days a Week. The chord change D->F is called a "false relation" because there is an F# followed by an F.
http://www.recmusicbeatles.com/public/f ... daw.2.html

[unpeople]

All good replies, but I think the simple fact is, when going from the I to the IV, you could literally put any seventh chord in between and it would sound good, given proper voice-leading.

[Km7]

I think dominant 7th chords are called the way they are called because this sonority occured on the dominant degree at first. Of course, they can occur on other degrees as secondary dominants and resolve irregularly. For example, you could see IV7-Imaj7, VI7-Imaj7 or III7-Imaj7. And then we have the dominant seventh chords that are the cornerstone of blues.

[jancivil]

#1: E7 -> F is a "deceptive cadence", which is when a dom7 chord, instead of resolving to its usual target chord a fourth higher, resolves to a similar chord just a step higher.

In this case, the usual target of the E7 chord would be Am.

not necessarily.
"Dominant 7th chord", maybe, maybe not.

The target might be actually F, arrived at by a different manner. E7 subs for C7. DEPENDS ON CONTEXT. Depends on the parts, whole lotta things. "The Usual Target Chord" is strictly from contextual. "Resolves' is hard to extricate from voice leading. If F after the E7 is satisfying, you're going to be copasetic there for a minute, there was no "deception". If it feels like that's a color of Aminor, tension still exists, your analyses is probably right.

The Beatles would do that C D7 F C bit without, I assure you, the slightest worry about why/wherefore. Largely getting away with it because McCartney has the golden ear, owing to past lives or something, and 'it sounded good so that's what happened', innately knowing sound part-writing.

I think the thing to do, is cultivate your own ear, above this after-the-fact analysis based on 'this shouldn't work but maybe it did?'. I can't tell you why it sounded good to you. By themselves these are banal moves to me.

[EggyToast]

The Beatles would do that C D7 F C bit without, I assure you, the slightest worry about why/wherefore. Largely getting away with it because McCartney has the golden ear, owing to past lives or something, and 'it sounded good so that's what happened', innately knowing sound part-writing.

I think the thing to do, is cultivate your own ear, above this after-the-fact analysis based on 'this shouldn't work but maybe it did?'. I can't tell you why it sounded good to you. By themselves these are banal moves to me.

A lot of it is also because the Beatles spent a lot of time playing together and recording stuff. I'm working on some tracks with a friend of mine, just the two of us. We progress much faster by recording him playing a guitar track, and then we use that to hang other parts of the song together -- drums, bass, vocal line, and song structure. We typically will re-record the guitar but leave other parts because in the process we found other things worked better. He wrote these songs originally but the end result is quite different because by actually putting it together -- in a relatively loose form -- we're free to listen and hear what works and what doesn't.

We know how to play our respective instruments, which helps get the initial parts together and working, but we get that way because we actually play through songs to practice and then quickly move to commit them to tape -- even if we're not recording final versions. It's a much faster way of working and a much easier way to determine what works and what doesn't, without resolving to theory for everything. I could go through and point out that for the bassline I'm hitting a 6th on the downbeat during the chorus but it sounds good because of how I'm resolving to a 5th and then the root, but whether I tell him that or not doesn't matter because it sounds good ;D