Tonal progressions of fifths

  Many songs are built around cycle of fifths. This means, chords are progressing according to the circle of fifths, e.g. E to A to D to G to C and so on. These are the root notes. What about the rest of the chord structures?

 There are some ways of thinking, but the most natural one, when following strict tonal requirements, would be a tonal fifth progression. Consequently, the chords would be built on the tonal scale notes only, i.e. no alterated notes. This reasoning would lead to progressions like (for a minor tonality):

   Am7  Dm7  G7  Cmaj7  Fmaj7  Bm7b5  E7  Am7

  Notice that E7 actually contains G# which is not a part of A minor scale, but it is a common practice to alter the minor third to a major third in the dominant chord of a minor tonality. The reason is to create a leading note to the root note of the I chord.

 The above progression may be coloured in ways we already covered. So for example, G7 might be changed to G9, and Fmaj7 may be substituted by Fmaj9.

 If you look closely at the above progression, you notice that it contains two II-V-I progressions! It is good to know if you know your II-V-I s on guitar  you just put together the I chord and IV chord with two II-V-I s to get a complete cycle of fifths. Watch out for the correct minor and major chords though!

 For a major tonality the progression would like like this:

   Cmaj7  Fmaj7  Bm7b5  Em7 or E7  Am7  Dm7  G7  Cmaj7

 It is easy to break the cycle and go into different keys bu changing some minor chord to a dominant 7 chord. For example, we might go:

   Cmaj7  Fmaj7  Bm7b5  E7  Amaj7

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