Changing V-I progressions to ii-V-I progressions

Filed in Free Lessons on January 05, 2009



When I recently posted this lesson, I did not go into enough detail to really explain it.  Several people emailed me and asked for clarification, so here it is.

A major point in that post was this: if you see a common V-I progression, you can improve it immediately by turning it into a ii-V-I progression.  I hesitate to use the word “always” but in reality, you can do this almost always and it will sound great.  You also do not really have to worry about overusing this concept.

I also mentioned that this is often done by turning a V chord into a ii-V progression.  You can split up the beats on the V chord and change the first part to a ii chord.  Here are a few practical examples. 

First, let’s consider a phrase from “Trust and Obey” that has a V-I progression. 



This is the way the second phrase would be typically written in a hymnal.  Notice the I – V – I progression.

Now, let’s turn this progression into a I – ii – V – I progression.




I did this by turning the first two beats of the V chord into a ii chord and leaving the third beat of that measure a V chord.  Study this carefully and learn to do this in your music.

Note the interesting voicing (way the notes are played on the keyboard) for the ii chord.  That is the way I would normally do it, but there are other options.  Just pick something that sounds good.  I played a 9th (A) but you do not have to do that.  You just need to play a minor ii (preferably ii7) chord along with the written melody note.

Now, let’s consider another example from the same song.  Here is the first phrase.  Note the I – V – I progression again.



Here is a solution for turning this progression into a I – ii – V – I progression.



Note that I did not break up the V chord into ii – V in this example.  I instead borrowed a beat from the I chord just in front of the V chord.  This also works quite well.

It is a bit hard to explain this kind of concept with these short lessons.  If you still are not following, consider purchasing Inspirational Improvisation.  I spend a lot of time on this particular strategy in that course.




Will you do me a personal favor?
If you use Facebook, please take a moment and comment on this post. I appreciate the feedback and doing this helps other people learn about my resources. Non-Facebook users can leave comments using the alternate form below.


Lenny
1/6/2009 10:52:36 PM

This is much more clear. Thank you. You are right that inserting the ii chord is a huge improvement. I am wondering how long it will take me to get to the point where I can do it naturally. Right now, I have to think about it too long.

---

Julie Baptiste
1/7/2009 2:07:56 PM

Thank you, thank you so much for posting this kind of stuff. I have a degree in church music and in all my hymn playing classes, never got information like this.

---

Lenny
1/7/2009 5:45:13 PM

I do have a question though. What do the ii and V chords have in common that the ii can substitute for the V? They have no common notes. For example, I knew you could substitute a vi or a iii for a I chord because they have two shared notes.

---

Leave a Comment
All comments are reviewed for offensive content or spam. Your email is required but never used.

Name:
Website:
Email:
	Please email me follow up comments to this post.
Comment:	Note that HTML is not allowed, but your name will be linked to your site.
Verify Code: