what is this?

[griggsy]

I was trying to read some of Tim Price's articles, and they look really useful, but...
I can't figure outwhat he means by the I, 1V, V, etc. and cycle of 4ths. Can anyone give me a brief run down of what this means. I work on arpeggios and triads in scales. Is this similar?? Thanks for the help. I think my attempts at improv are suffering because of my lack of knowledge of these chords.

[griggsy]

What Tim had mentioned in his article "Analyzing tunes" was II, V, I's. There was also a page on saxontheweb that had some dominant 7th exercises with what he called cycle of 4ths. I just wanted to specify a bit.

[Gregg W. Jackson]

I, IV, V etc. refer to using Roman numerals to indicate chords. For example, "I" refers to the tonic chord, which is the chord built on the root of the scale. The advantage of using Roman numerals is that we can talk about chords in terms of how they function in any key. For example, when we say "V-I", we're talking about any progression from the chord built on the fifth note of the scale to that chord built on the root of the scale. "V-I" could be "G-C" if we were in C or "Eb-Ab" if we were in Ab.

We usually use upper case Roman numerals for major chords and lower case for minor. So "ii-V-I" refers to the minor chord built on the second note of the scale moving to the major chord built on the fifth degree of the scale moving to the major chord built on the root of the scale.

Also note that we sometimes indicate the seventh of the scale, and sometimes we leave it out for brevity. So "ii-V-I" is usually short for "ii7-V7-I".

The term "cycle of fourths" refers to a progression from a chord to the chord a fourth above it. For example, from C to F to Bb to Eb and so on. Many popular and jazz tunes have chord progressions that contain cycle of fourths progressions. If you look at the chords in the music in Tim's article "Rhythm Changes", you'll see "Gm7-Cm7-F7" in the first two bars and "Dm7-Gm7-Cm7-F7" in the next two. If you look further, you'll see more cycle of fourths progressions.

[griggsy]

Thanks for the explanation Gregg. That clears things up a bit. I encountered this one that was a bit confusing in Sax Journal. Quoting Andrew Clark's article:
"The form of the tune is a typical I-vi-ii-V ballad chord progression with a bridge that goes to IV with a secondary dominant turn around back to the top"

Excuse me????????? Can anyone help me get through this one?

[JL]

Let me take a shot at it. No doubt someone can explain it better than I can but here goes:

The I-vi-ii-V part refers to the main section of the tune, and is a fairly typical type of progression. If this were in the key of C, then the progression would be C-Am-Dm-G7. This progression might be spread out over 4, 8, or 16 bars. The progression might repeat itself, then go to the bridge and change to the IV chord, in this case F. Coming out of the bridge (say 8 bars) on the last 2 bars there would be a turnaround--a progression that leads back to the tonic chord of C. A turnaround is typically 4 chords and in this case it sounds like some (or all) of those chords would be "temporary dominant chords," meaning they function as dominant chords in a different key, perhaps within a pair of "ii-V" chords, eventually resolving to the tonic C chord.

So, for example, if the turnaround is iii-VI7-ii-V7 (Em-A7-Dm-G7), the "VI7" chord (A7) would be a temporary dominant, resolving to the Dm chord. And the Em-A7 is a temporary "ii-V" in the key of D.

Or all of those chords (in the turnaround) could be dominant, in which case they would all function as temporary dominants (except the G7 which resolves to the tonic C chord).

Make sense?? Hope I didn't confuse you further.

[griggsy]

That looks good to me. I am still in the dark about what exactly a bridge is, but that really helps. Thanks!

[JL]

Oh yeah, the bridge.....I remember wondering what that was at one time! The bridge is merely a section of the tune where the chord progression and melody changes to add variety or contrast in the tune. So, for example, many tunes have a form such as "AABA." "A" stands for one section, usually 8 bars in length, with a specific progression that repeats itself, then moves on to "B" which is the bridge. Then "A" is repeated once again. All of this is simply a way to structure the tune. "Rhythym" changes (based on the tune "I've got rhythym") is a classic example. The bridge in Rhythym is a series of secondary dominants moving part way through the cycle of fourths.

You can find all this stuff in any good book on jazz theory. Check out the literature thread here.