Betting On Some Numbers

What would you think?

Last Week’s Bonus Round: "Forever Autumn" is a song written by Jeff Wayne, Gary Osborne and Paul Vigrass. The original melody was written by Wayne in 1969 as a jingle for a Lego commercial. Vigrass and Osborne, the performers of the original jingle, added lyrics to the song and recorded it for inclusion on their 1972 album Queues. Their interpretation was also released as a single and gained moderate commercial success in Japan, selling more than 100,000 copies and becoming a top-20 hit on the country's record chart.

The best-known version is the recording by Justin Hayward from the album Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. Wayne wanted to include a love song on the album that sounded like "Forever Autumn", and he decided that the best course of action was to simply use the original song. Wayne chose Hayward, of The Moody Blues, to sing it saying that he "wanted that voice from 'Nights in White Satin'".[citation needed] It was recorded at London's Advision Studios in 1976. The song reached #5 on the UK Singles Chart in August 1978. The single version was released on the compilation album Highlights from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.” Credit Wikipedia

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If I said “two five one” in conversation, most folks would hear “2-5-1”. A musician with some familiarity with a very common jazz chord progression would hear ii-7, V7, IMaj7. This progression doesn’t fit in every song, and it’s not particularly common in blues based pop/rock/country(!), but it’s worth knowing in order to use it where it can add a bit of flavor to sections of a song. As an experiment, I once wrote a song with little but the ii-7, V7, IMaj7 chords. I’m not much of a jazz guy as a player, but I do like to listen to jazz. So the song turned out not that cool, the 2-5-1 combination works better as a change of mood, or to break out of a perhaps too often repeated chord progression in other parts of a song, but it kind of worked in that song because it was a downbeat, sort of a breakup song, and the minor 7 chord emphasized that somewhat. I’ll explain what I mean as we go along.

Some thoughts - I like to write in the Key of GMaj. I like to sing in AMaj because it’s a little easier for my voice to hit that range, but I also wish to avoid all the sharped barre chords in AMaj. So I write in GMaj, and often capo on the second fret and sing in AMaj. Staying “diatonic” (diatonic means using only the chords rooted on the scale of the key you’re in) can be a bit boring and repetitive and I find writing in only one or two keys makes me sort of a one trick pony - all my songs sorta have a common flavor, and that’s not where I want to stay. Not wanting “to stay” means a couple of things. I can start writing in different keys (barre chords!), I can stay in my comfy keys but capo to weird keys - the intervals would remain the same, but with different starting points and if I played the same song for you in two different keys at the same time, it would sound terrible - literally “off-key”. Another approach is to use the diatonic basic triad chords, but extend or alter them in some fashion so the listener isn’t hearing exactly the same progression over and over.

Example: you could write a chord change from a CMaj to a C9 chord and you would be saying to others “play a basic CMaj chord but add a 7th and a 9th to it”. Writing a chord as a letter with a number directly after indicates all of the common extensions are included. A C13 means “play a basic CMaj triad and add a 7th, 9th, 11th and 13th note above the C”. Here’s a quote from a source that clarifies it a bit: “For an F13, that would be a D above the octave. But it is more than that. A 9 assumes a dominant 7. An 11 assumes a 9. Thus, a 13 assumes the 11. For F, we're at F A C Eb G Bb D.” Credit: What's a 13th chord?

So if you want an extension, but you don’t want to attempt octopus fingers on a guitar fretboard to get there (pianists/keyboardists are snickering right now but they can play ten notes at a time using both hands, so….whatevs), a common way to get there is to use an “add” chord. A Cadd9 chord is easy to play, gives a different, but still chordal (as opposed to discordant) sound, but doesn’t require the 7th note as a part of the chord, where a C9 would. With a Cadd9, you’re essentially saying “I like that 9 sound (9 diatonic notes above the C in the lower octave, which is a D, basically a major second in the next higher octave), but I don’t particularly want the 7th included as it would be in a non “add” C9. An “add” chord or a suspended chord (two types - Sus2 or Sus4 - means you don’t play the third of the triad at all because it’s temporarily suspended, but play the second or fourth instead) are common ways to add interest in a chord progression that would otherwise be just basic triads. Add chords, sus chords, some others like 6 chords are usually used sparingly and briefly or momentarily to add an interesting sound to an otherwise mundane triad or 7th chord (Example: the repeating GMaj to G6 chords in the verse lines of “Tequila Sunrise” - gives a sort of “cowboy” sound to it).

If this written stuff is a little difficult to visualize, go to one of my favorite sites for chord diagrams, jguitar.com (JGuitar), and type in the basic triad chord, for instance “D” - a drop down list will show you diagrams for just about every possible chord extension and alteration (like D7, Dsus, Dadd13, etc).

So, back to 2-5-1: ii-, V, and I chords are common, though not particularly in that order. It is heard in the combination sometimes in blues based pop/rock, though often only as basic triads and not as differently interesting as the ii-7, V7, IMaj7 progression. It’s important to note if you decide to play an interesting 2-5-1 combination with 7ths, you should be playing the ii as a minor 7 chord, the V as a dominant 7 chord, and the I as a Major 7 chord. That combination gives a unique, and once you hear it, easily recognizable “coolness”. In the reasonably easy CMaj, GMaj, and DMaj Major keys, ii-7, V7, IMaj7 progressions look like this:

Key of CMaj - Dm7, G7, CMaj7

Key of GMaj - Am7, D7, GMaj7

Key of DMaj - Em7, A7, DMaj7

All of those are pretty easy open position chords, the DMaj7 is the only barre chord, and it’s an easy index finger only across 3 strings at the 3rd fret (the G,B and e strings), and can be memorized easily.

Where to use them? A place I’ll often go to a ii-V-I progression is the bridge. The bridge should stand out a bit from the verse-chorus sections and a ii-7, V7, IMaj7 progression is a good way to do that, just bring the I or V triad chords or both at the end of the bridge or in an instrumental break progression before the next verse. You could also do the same in the chorus, but I’ve found in a non-jazz song it’s better to use the ii-7, V7, IMaj7 progression sparingly. It works best in the bridge, maybe an instrumental break, and especially in an outro. In the outro it gives a sort of interesting finish to a song that’s otherwise mostly triad chords with alterations/extensions, but not many, or any, minor 7ths or Major 7ths. Your mileage may vary, of course, and not everyone will find the 2-5-1 progression cool, some may find it discordant even. Try it, use it if it fits the mood or groove of the song, and be judicious - it doesn’t really have a place in every song, and in some genres it should be avoided, but I’ll leave that to your ear and taste.

Bonus Round: It’s how I get by…

Cheers and keep playing!!

Michael Acoustic