Yo Everyone,
Here we go with the Circle of 5ths once again! You’ll get something out of this one for sure!
We are going to work with the I-IV-V Blues progression. We all of familiar with this one!
As you can see the I-IV-V is already laid out on this Circle of 5ths (the Outer circles) so, everyone can get the picture here!
Let’s take the I-IV-V in "G". If we go straight out from G on this Circle of 5ths we get, G as the I chord and C as the IV chord and D as the V chord.
Now let’s do the same thing without using the Outer circles! We start at G, which is the Root or I chord and the IV chord is just to the left of G, which is C! And the V chord is just to the right of G, which is D!! You can do this with any Root Note and get your I-IV-V Blues progression. Try it!!
Now let’s spice things up a bit! (Still in the key of G) We can exchange the I chord with the vi chord (Relative minor…In the inner circle) to change the feel of the progression. This would be a vi-IV-V. The Relative minor vi chord of G is E and, the IV chord is C and the V chord is D. We get Em-C-D.
In addition, we can exchange the IV and the V chords with their Relative minor chords!
Let’s do one. (Still in the key of G) The I chord is G…Let’s change the IV chord C…The relative minor vi chord of C is A, and the V chord is D. So, the progression would be I-vi-V or G-Am-D. How about that?? Try it!!
Here where yesterdays Bass Tip of the Day come in….We can see how the Roman Numerals and Chord scale fits together. Take a look at the example we just did to check it out!
Now, we have Demystified an aspect of the Circle of 5ths!!
