Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 09:25:44 -0800 (PST) From: Winslow Yerxa Subject: Re: blue notes/jazz substitutions - the ii-V
In my last post I showed a few tritone substitutions for chords in a 12-bar blues. In this one, we can look at ii-V substitutions.
What's a ii-V?
First, let's just look at V-I. In C, this would be G-C. The V-I relationship is considered to be the strongest chordal relationship. It strongly reinforces the I as the tonal center, and has the greatest finality in leading back to the I. BEtween them, the V and I triad contain 5 of the 7 notes in the major scale:
(notes of the V chord in parentheses) C (D) E G (G) B
Two notes are missing, F and A (4 and 6)
But the V also has a V. If we count up 5 notes from V, we arrive at II.
In C major, the II chord is built on D - the second note in the scale. it's a minor chord, or a minor 7 (m7) if we add the 7th, which is commonly done in jazz.
So we can lead into the V with the II chord, then from the V to I. if we look at the notes involved, we can see that all the notes in the major scale are now included:
- -II- (V) I
C -(D)- E -F- G(G) -A- (B) C
So the ii-V-I progresion both reinforces the tonality ad states all its scale materials.
Why do I write ii instead of II? Indicates a minor chord.
So, how can we apply ii-V-I to 12-bar blues?
First and most obvious is to replace V-IV-I in the last 4 bars with 11-V-I. A lot of the earlies recorded 12-bar blues seem to just use V for 2 measures, without any IV or ii. Then, it seems like the blues and rock people branched off into V-IV, while the jazz people went the other way, into ii-V. later, the V-IV was re-introduced to jazz, almost like a special effect.
BLUES: V / / / | IV / / / | I etc.
G / / / | F / / / | C etc.
JAZZ: iim7 / / / | V7 / / / | I etc.
Dm7 / / / | G / / / | C etc.
But we can use ii-V's in other places as well.
In the first 4 bars, we can relieve the monotony of the I chord with a quick little ii-V:
I / / / | ii / V / | I etc.
C / / / | Dm7 / G7 / | C etc.
We can also use a ii-V - INTHE KEY OF THE IV, to lead into the IV. here I'll state it in actual chords:
C / / / | Dm7 / G7 / | C / / / | Gm7 / C7 / | F etc.
note that Gm7 does not belong to the key of C; it's borrowed from F major, the key of the IV. Gm7-C7 is ii-V in the key of F.
Now let's say we play IV for 2 measures, then I for two more. Then we go to the ii-V-I in the last 4.
But we can lead in to the ii-V by stepping back one more chord up the chain and using the V of ii.
In C, if we count up 5 steps from ii (D), we get A.
So, dig this, startin in bar 5 of the 12-bar verse:
F / / / | F / / / | C / / /| A7 / / / |
Dm7 / / / | G7 / / / | C etc.
This is quite common in jazz-based blues. Sometimes this gets a bit more dressed up:
F / / / | F / / / | C / Dm7 /| Em7 / A7 / |
Dm7 / / / | G7 / / / | C etc.
Here, we start moving up scale degrees - C-D-E, using the chords that would fall on those desgrees in the major scale. If we count up 5 degrees from A, we get E. And note that E leads into A in the progression above. A leads into D, D into G, and G to C - a long chain of V-I relationships, reach one trumping the last.
having looked at all that ii-V stuff, let me turn back to the tritone substitutions of my last post, and show one way that tritone substitutions and ii-V's can intersect. Here is a fairly common alernate progression used in blues bands:
instead of V / / / | IV / / / | I etc.
we play V / / / | bVI / V / | I
e.g. G / / /| Ab / G / | I
Well, what's the tritone substitution for D? it's Ab. D is II in the key of C. So the bVI chord is a substitute ii chord:
V / / / | bVI / V / | I
is a substitute for
V / / /| iim7 / V / | I
Winslow
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