{"id":14142,"date":"2016-08-04T00:00:23","date_gmt":"2016-08-04T08:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hearandplay.com\/main\/?p=14142"},"modified":"2024-10-07T17:34:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T01:34:58","slug":"mastering-2-5-1-root-progressions-using-quartal-triads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hearplaymain.wpenginepowered.com\/mastering-2-5-1-root-progressions-using-quartal-triads\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastering 2-5-1 Root Progressions On Your Left Hand Using Quartal Triads"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, I’ll be showing you a smarter way of mastering 2-5-1 root progressions on your left hand using quartal triads.<\/p>\n

The 2-5-1 root progression is very important in music because most of the time it’s found at the ending of a song. In a previous post, we even learned how songs end with the 2-5-1 chord progression most of the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before we go into our topic for today, let’s do a review of the 2-5-1 root progression.<\/p>\n

A Note On The 2-5-1 Root Progression<\/h2>\n

Every key (whether major<\/a> or minor<\/a>) has its traditional scale<\/a> which outlines the number of notes in a given key.<\/p>\n

For example, the key of C major:
\n
\n…has seven notes.<\/p>\n

These seven notes put together when played in a scalar form has eight degrees, which are numbered from one to eight.<\/p>\n

C:
\n
\n…is the first.<\/p>\n

D:
\n
\n…is the second.<\/p>\n

E:
\n
\n…is the third.<\/p>\n

F:
\n
\n…is the fourth.<\/p>\n

G:
\n
\n…is the fifth.<\/p>\n

A:
\n
\n…is the sixth.<\/p>\n

B:
\n
\n…is the seventh, and C:
\n
\n…is the eighth scale degree.<\/p>\n

Bear in mind that the eighth tone is not often used, and that’s because it is the duplicate of the first scale degree. Consequently, it’s common to see the numbers one to seven used to represent the movement of chords.<\/p>\n

A root progression<\/strong> is the movement of the root note<\/a> of chords, from one degree of the scale to another.<\/p>\n

The 2-5-1 root progression is basically a root movement from the second (aka – “supertonic”), to the fifth (aka – “dominant”), and then to the first degree\u00a0(aka – “tonic”) in any given key.<\/p>\n

Attention: <\/strong>The terms supertonic, dominant and tonic are the technical names<\/a> music scholars associate with the second, fifth, and first tones of the scale.<\/p>\n

The 2-5-1 root progression is important in music for a variety of reasons, however, the most common reason is that 95% of the time, songs end with the 2-5-1 root progression. Due to its importance, we’ll go ahead and learn an easy way to master it, using quartal triads.<\/p>\n

But before we get into that let’s take a look at quartal triad.<\/p>\n

“What Is A Quartal Triad?”<\/em><\/h2>\n

Following traditional guidelines, Although chords are built in intervals of thirds (aka – “tertian harmony<\/a>“) pursuant to traditional guidelines, there are also other classes of harmony in intervals of seconds, fourths, and fifths.<\/p>\n

In this lesson, we’re focusing on harmony in intervals of fourths. Using the C major scale:
\n
\n…a fourth from C:
\n
\n…is F:
\n
\n…another fourth from F is B:
\n
\nSo altogether C-F-B:
\n
\n…is a quartal triad.<\/p>\n

A quartal triad is a collection of notes (aka – “chord”) related by a given scale and in fourth intervals. Quartal triads like C-F-B:
\n
\nD-G-C:
\n
\n…etc., are different from tertian triads like C-E-G:
\n
\n…D-F-A:
\n
\n…etc., because the interval between the chord tones a quartal triads are in fourth intervals versus thirds that are found in tertian triads.<\/p>\n

There are a variety of quartal triads, and the quality of a quartal triad depends on the quality of fourth interval it contains. Although there are three known qualities of fourths…<\/p>\n