Speaking of I-VI-ii-V, what the hell is a chord progression and what are these roman numbers here? Yes, they’re ‘chords that sound good together’ but how do you translated that to ‘bad to the bone’?
Go for it.
A chord progession is chords whose anchor notes fit into a scale. So if you are playing in C, then a C chord is the I (or Do of Do Re Mi), F is the IV or Fa and G is the V or so the So - so if you are playing C, F, G chords your are playing the I IV V chord progression within the key of C. If you move the I IV V chord progression to the key of D, you would play D G A. So the chord progression lays out the distance between the chords - if you play in a different key you apply the same distances but start with the new key as the Do or I note. Cool?
Lower-case = minor (vs. major). So, in the key of D, if you play D B Em A, you are playing the I VI ii V chord progression in the key of D - and you will hear it sounds like a ton of songs. When I play it with a medium-paced shuffle beat (a one and a two and a one and a two), I typically fall into Lollipop: Lollipop, lollipop, oh lolly - lollipop…
**twicks **- I would love to, but am trying to be a good boy - and one who already spent too much money this year to see Clapton/Beck - but given what I am hearing about what Beck is playing at these shows, I’d rather be on one of these…
Aha. I knew there had to be a logical sequence I was missing. Got it. Sort of. It makes sense enough.
A chord progression is simply a series of chords in a specific order. Every song consists of one or more chord progressions. Usually each part (verse, chorus, bridge, etc.) has its own progression. Of course there are exceptions…some songs repeat the same progression over and over, e.g. “Hey Joe,” “All Along the Watchtower,” “Little Wing,” and most blues tunes.
To expand on what Wordman said, here’s the deal with roman numerals:
If you take any major scale and construct chords by stacking thirds on each degree, you will get this pattern (called the chordal scale):
I - ii - iii - IV - V - vi - vii
Upper case = major
lower case = minor
Keeping things simple, in a key of C [C major scale is C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C], the chordal scale is
C - Dm - Em - F - G - Am - Bdim
C = C E G
Dm = D F A
Em = E G B
F = F A C
G = G B D
Am = A C E
Bdim = B D F
See, just skipping every other note in the major scale.
If we add another note (stacking another third) we get:
IMaj7 - ii7 - iii7 - IVMaj - V7 - vi7 - vii7b5
CMaj7 - Dm7 - Em7 - FMaj7 - G7 - Am7 - Bm7b5
CMaj7 = C E G B
Dm7 = D F A C
Em7 = E G B D
FMaj7 = F A C E
G7 = G B D F
Am7 = A C E G
Bm7b5 = B F D A
The progression I - vi - ii - V is a very common chord progression. It’s probably best known as part of the Gershwin tune “I Got Rhythm”, which evolved into a song form called “Rhythm Changes”.
When playing a jazz blues (12 bar blues with a number of chord substitutions), the vi7 chord in measure #8 (should be minor to stay in the key) is often played VI7 to “hip it up”. Why jazz players make this change is another discussion…but that’s why my user name is I - VI - ii - V. It’s also often the turnaround (measures 11 & 12) in the jazz blues.
I hope I didn’t make any typos 
Now that makes perfect sense now. So what are some other common progressions? I’m not a jazz player by any means, so I’m more interested in some basic ones like, again, that one George Thorogood or Bo Diddley plays. (I’m a man! Spelled M… A… N…) It’s the same progression, right?
The classic 12-bar blues is
I-IV-I-V-IV-I
Note that all the chords are major chords (or usually dominant 7th chords), so I wrote them all in uppercase. They don’t follow the normal major-key chord sequence.
The fragment ii-V-I is extremely common in jazz. Songs like How High The Moon and Tune Up are loaded with it, although with changes to the key center. For example, How High The Moon begins something like
G
Gm7 C7 F
Fm7 Bb7 Eb
Am7 D7 Gm7
After the initial G chord, the next three lines are all ii-V-I, with the last I being a minor chord. But it shift key centers each time. We still show the analysis as ii-V-I in this case, although there are more complex ways to do it which I won’t confuse you with.
What they are playing are riffs, NOT chord progressions: single or multi-string / partial-chords in a specific rhythmic pattern, like Smoke on the Water. Not quite the same - but understanding the difference is a cool bit of insight.
Thorogood - Bad to the Bone: He’s playing slide and hitting “G G A and G E” - the guitar is in open tuning so while fretting the notes I name, any other notes on the other strings are in tune to a chord so all sound good.
Bo Diddley’s beat (Shave and haircut, two bits = BOMP baBOMP baBOMP, BOMP BOMP) is often just played on one chord - so if there is a chord progression, it would be: I (actually, that’s pretty cool)…if you want to insert a second chord, hit the IV chord on the BOMP right before the end, and back down to the main chord on the last BOMP. So if you play this in E, hit an A-then-E right at the end. But you could play it on the lowest two open strings of your guitar and it would “count” as the Bo Diddley beat…
The “Bo Diddley Beat” is a 3:2 clave, the foundation of tons of, if not most, Latin music.
clave = | Q* Q* Q | QR Q Q QR |
where Q=quarter note, Q*=dotted quarter, QR=quarter rest [accents on the 1, 2+, 4 | 2, 3 ]
There’s a little bit of extra strumming in the Bo Diddley Beat, but it’s basically the clave.
A 2:3 clave is when you reverse the pattern (play the second measure first).
Wordman, does the Bo Diddley beat sound best to you with a G chord?
I think going to the IV before going back to the I is what Bow Wow Wow does in “I Want Candy,” another BDB tune.
should be:
I - ii - iii - IV - V - vi - viidim
CookingwithGas hit the basic 12 bar blues (there’s lots of variations, and even more with jazz substitutions) and the ii - V - I he mentioned is huge.
Other common rock progressions:
I - vi - IV - V
I - IV - V - I or I - IV - V - IV
I - bVII - IV - I or I - bVII - IV - bVII
A Minor Jazz Blues is often:
| i7 | / | i7 | / |
| iv7 | / | i7 | / |
| bVI7 | V7 | i7 | i7 |
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I had no idea how to document that beat rhythmically - cool.
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My band does I Want Candy - very fun; and yeah, it hits the IV; a lot of Bo riffs do; others do and don’t depending on mood, like Thorogood’s version of Who Do You Love. That’s the beauty of a riff like that - it’s not chords, it’s a riff and you can throw in little variants so different notes rub up together. That’s a key difference between guitar and piano - the notes and chords in piano are more defined; the design of guitar and the ability to voice the same chord different ways all over the neck, do bends and whammy dives - it kinda leads to chord-smearing, if you will. That’s why riffs are their own distinct category vs. chord progressions…
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and if you are asking a guitar player about the Bo Diddley beat, I have to go with E on a standard-tuned guitar: with the open low E string you can get that rumbly E to anchor the riff and then play a bunch of cool hammer-on and pull-off fills in between parts of the riff…A is good after that, one string up. G is fun - isn’t Tom Petty’s American Girl (another Bo Diddley beat song) in G? - but doesn’t provide as much access to open-string blues licks…
Okay. Now this is all starting to make sense. And scales are starting to make sense. I’m gonna need to practice a lot before it gells, but I think I see what I should be working for now.
On a different topic, sort of the existentialism of guitar playing: I have a few rules I have learned:
- No matter how time you spend practicing, it’s not enough
I try to make up a practice routine that includes drills for chops, scales, arpeggios, and learning new tunes, but found that my optimal practice session is approximately 25 hours per day. I’m willing to give up eating, sleeping, and working, but that extra hour is going to kill me.
- The amount of stuff that you realize you don’t know grows in proportion to new stuff you learn. In other words, the more you learn, the less you know.
When I was a kid I thought I knew everything about playing guitar. I was a master of the blues scale in three positions. Then I saw a friend who played a scale across 15 frets. It was just a major scale, but I didn’t know how to play a major scale. Then I figured that out and thought I was done. Then I took some jazz lessons and learned arpeggios of all kinds of chords. Then I knew it all. Until I started learning about all the modes based on the major scale. After which I was set. Then I learned about whole-tone scales and diminished scales, figuring that completed my knowledge. Until I found out that jazz players also know modes on harmonic minor. Then I learned about chord substitutions, altering 7th chords, voicings all over the place. Then once again I knew it all, until I saw someone here talking about subdominant harmony. I had to look that up and I have read the same single page about 6 times trying to get it through my head. So basically I keep getting stupider and stupider every year.
- It’s really, really fun to get new gear, but it hardly ever makes you a better player.
If you have a shitty guitar that buzzes, and you notice it, then you’re good enough to deserve an axe that plays well. But much beyond that you’re just contributing to the economy. I sympathize with the Eternal Quest For Tone but I think you get better results concentrating on the music itself and not what lies between the strings and the speaker.
- But it’s really, really fun to get new gear
So I have 6 guitars, two amps, about 6 pedals. And I use every single one. But once I met a guy with 75 guitars, and I could only ask, “Why”? Who really needs 12 PRS guitars, 20 Strats, etc.?
Click and drool. This is not a guitar store, this is one guy’s gear.
Whoa - that’s a lot of money on gear. While I love the thought of it, unless I was a touring pro who needed the gear, after a while it just becomes…accumulation.
Cool stuff for sure. I would love to be in a situation where I had the problem of too much gear on that level.
As for your Rules of Guitar Playing - I really agree with your “the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.”
I would add “simpler is better; less is more” - the less I play within a piece of music, the better I sound.
As for “new gear is fun, but look to actual practice for improvement” - fundamentally I agree. Tone is in your hands. Having said that, I would add a different rule that kinda applies here: “know and respect your tools” - know what tool works best for you and know why. Within that context, then yes, if you are just buying a guitar because it looks cool and having a new guitar would goose you into playing more - then your GAS isn’t helping you; find improvement through practice - you’ll just end up selling the guitar when the newness wears off anyway. But if you really invest time to know your tools, then they can really make a difference in your playing. Moving from slim, fast necks to big, chunky necks transformed my playing; same with moving from humbuckers and single coils meant to be played full on 10 to P-90 Soapbars and Tele pickups which are meant to have their knobs twiddled…
Just checked out this guys’s stuff via your links - whoa. Very different. I love the clip of Steve Nullmeyer cranking on slide and country blues - the guitar sounds great and he isn’t babying it, even though it is a gorgeous piece of art…same with Phil X.
I would love to try one…
Oh and **CWG **- forgot to mention; yeah, I know the TDPRI Tele Forum. I visit there occasionally but get Tele-burnt-out if I hang there for a length of time…heck, that’s true of most pure-guitar sites, which is a reason I enjoy this GOGT here on the Dope - a wider variety of participants, fewer dug-in positions and biases and a nice overall tone…
And occasionally you pick up something you had no idea existed. Which is awesome.
By the way, I got one final bit of GAS. Yes, I’m gonna pick up the Rock Band Squier. But… the Mustang is really really comfortable. I went to Sam Ash and tried a full size one out. It’s really comfortable.
http://www.guitarfetish.com/XV-JM-Series-Offset-Electric-Guitars_c_208.html
I’m being harshly tempted by the JT-40 and JT-90. Any thoughts, gentlemen?
(Also, would the people at the Tele-forum call the 90 blasphemy or would their heads just explode?)
Well, as near as I can tell you were delighted by the guitar that you’d bought from them previously. Go for it if it feels right – they have an excellent return policy, right?
The “Jazz-caster” (Jazzmaster offset-waist body + Tele layout) has been in vogue for a few years now; Fender makes a custom shopped relic version which looks really cool. As for Tele purists, there’s no strict definition - you get the ones who are collector-condition picky and have mapped every freakin’ nuance of the first-gen Teles (see The Blackguard Bookfor the ultimate in anal detail - they were issued in a limited edition, each book with a serial number in the same sequence as actual first-gen Teles. It has become cool in collector’s circle to match your early 50’s Tele with its Blackguard Book counterpart - a bit precious to me, but if I could get my hands on a Blackguard Tele, I wouldn’t mind the book, too ;)). But you also get guys who respect the Tele as a foundation - if you haven’t swapped something out or routed something in, you aren’t taking advantage of the “blank canvas” nature of a Tele. It runs the gamut and each genre of music has their sense of ownership of Teles and their own “recipe” for getting their classic sounds out of one…