The Diatonic Circle Chord Progression

The diatonic circle progression is maybe by far the most winning formula in pop music. During the previous lesson we've learned to form four voices seven chords. (Click here if you'd like to follow this lesson first).

If you want to study about all the different progressions I suggest you start here.

Today in this lesson we're going to use these wonderful colorful chords within this common progression and play some great songs like "I will survive", "Autumn leaves" and more...

If you remember we were talking before about the most basic progression in every type of western music; the I-V7-I. I've been talking about in here if you need to fresh up your memory).

In this progression we move from the tonic (first degree) to the dominant seventh (fifth degree) which creates a tension back to the tonic that brings a musical phrase to conclusion.

The fifth degree is falling five steps to the first degree and that's why it is called a cadence. The word "Cadence" in Italian means falling. When the Italian talk they tend to drop their pitch in the last syllable of their centence. That's where this term comes from.

Here's how the bass line looks like. It is jumpong five steps from G to C.

Next we talked about the II-V7-I progression which is a small expansion of theis cadence. We started from the second degree then fell five steps to the fifth degree and then back to the first degree again five steps down.

Notice that when you perform a falling of two fifth on the piano you have quite a distance to go. After falling from D to G it is handy to go a fourth higher to C the upper C instead of dropping another fifth to the lower C. The ear still understands this as a falling of two fifths.

The diatonic circle progression is basically and expansion of this basic chord progression stretched over the whole diatonic scale.

Let me explain. The diatonic circle shows you the you can continue falling in fifths endlessly in the diatonic circle until you choose to go out of the scale.

The most natural option is to continue to fall in fifths in the scale and go out to the tonic when you reach the G7 chord which is the true dominant of C major. like this example below where we start from the sixth degree of C major (Am)

If we play a song in the minor scale like autumn leaves (See below) we will continue in the falling in diatonic fifth until we reach Em. Instead of playing Em we will play E7 which is the dominant seventh of Am. That would be our way out of the scale.

In this example we start Am we fall in fifth through the whole scale and we go out with E7 to Am again. If you don't play E7 but Em the impact of the fifth won't be strong enough so we will end up falling in fifth again until we add a dominant seven chord somewhere.

Let's first see how we form this progression on the piano using triad chords (three voices chords).

This scheme would clarify my explanations I'm sure...

Here's a free piano chord chart of the falling diatonic circle chord progression with triads in all scales.

Now all we've left to do is add the seventh note for all these diatonic chords and make this great progression much richer.

A Tip: If you play this chord progression with the four voices chords notice that when moving from the sixth degree to second degree you basically low the upper two keys one white key to the left then from the second degree to the next drop of fifth degree to G7 you move the lower two keys to the left.

Here's a free piano chord chart of the falling diatonic circle progression with four voices chords in all scales.

Now I'd like us to see a few examples of famous songs that contain this chord progression.

Autumn Leaves

Take Autumn Leaves for example which is played on the A minor.
In this song we're starting to play from the fourth degree of Em (Am). We fall in fifths in the diatonic circle of Em until we reach Bm (The V degree of Em).
When we reach B minor we will replace it with B7 the dominant seven of E minor and this chord will demand us to snap out of the scale to the tonic.

Notice that in Autumn Leaves we play in a chord position and therefore instead of going up with the upper two notes of the chord we go up with the lower two keys of the chord.

I will Survive

"The famous song I will survive is a living example of the diatonic circle chord progression. We start from Cm the tonic, the we move down in fifth in the diatonic circle of Cm minor when we reach the fifth degree of Cm.

We replace it with Gsus7, which is a suspension chord leading to G7 which is the dominant seven chord telling us we have to snap out of the circle back to Cm. Then we start all over again.

As you can probably see in this song I chose to domonstrate this chord progression with and other inversion so what we do is jump from Cm to Fm for example with all three voices (The lower two voices jump a third down and the upper voices is stepping one step lower).

When moving from Fm to Bb we will leave the F as a static note and raise the lower to voice of Fm (Ab and C) one step up. We're basically moving at the same way only vice versa.

All The Things You Are

I'll use the next song to demonstrate the diatonic circle chord progression with seven chords.

When we play the song "All the Things You Are" we start from the I degree of F minor (and we add the seven as a color) then we fall in fifths again and again until we reach the sixth degree Db (with the major seven as a color).

From this moment we actually change our point of view. We now want to go to a new scale C major. So from the sixt degree of F minor we will go to D half diminished which is the second degree of C minor, then we will fall a fifth down again to G7, the true dominant of C minor ... but we will use C major instead. Why?

The ending a musical line with a major chord, when the rest of the composition is in a minor key to give the line a sense of finality is called a picardy third.

We will start our next musical line in C minor and set it as the tonic chord. We will drop in fifths whithin the scale structure of C minor (with the seventh as a color) until we reach the sixth degree Abmaj7(with the major seventh as a color again), then move to the II-V7-I of G minor and We will end the line with G major (a picardy third again).

I'd like to show you many more example of different chord progressions in many other great songs. But first I think we have to cover another important issue, Click here to learn about the secondary dominant.