Jazz 2-5-1 Chord Progressions - Piano Lessons

Piano Lessons.com The #1 Name in Piano Lessons Online Jazz 2- 5- 1– Nate Bosch Hi! I’m Nate Bosch of Piano Lessons.com and today I want to talk to you about the famous 2-5-1 progression. It’s a progression that’s really used a lot in jazz. Now what am I talking about when I say 2-5 and 1? Well if you take the key of C, the two is the chord based on the second note of the scale and that is A minor seven chord. It’s G, F, A and C. Now there is our 2 chord. The Five chord is a dominant seventh chord based on the fifth note of the scale which is G, and there we have the G seven chord. And the last chord in that progression is the one chord which is based on the root or the C. It’s also— [Demo] Seventh chord. Now, when you’re listening to these chords in any 2-5-1 progression, we’re listening to the quality of the chord and that is found in that seventh interval. We have the minor, D minor seven, the dominant seventh and then the major seventh and the one chord. So when I play it together you can hear out each one has a different quality. There’s the minor seventh to the dominant seventh and then we have the major seventh on the 1 chord. So there you have a basic 2-5-1 progression, now the key to understanding where 2-5-1 is, is look at every key. Say in the key of F, what would be the 2-5-1 progression in F? So we have the root, the F major seven would be the 1 so the 2 chord would start on G and using the notes in the F major scale we can build, there’s our G minor seven chord so there’s our 2 chord. Now we go to the five chord, what’s the fifth note in the F scale? Well that’s C, we know the 5 is a dominant seventh using all the notes in the F major scale we come up with the C seven and then like at the beginning there is our F major seven. So 2-5-1 in F is [Demo] And you can do that with every so let’s pick for example. There is A, now [Demo] If we get in the seventh there, there’s our 1 chord. The 2 would be the B minor seven. The 5 would be, well what’s five away from the A, E, there’s our 5 seventh of dominant seventh chord and then we end off with the one. So you’ll find that in jazz that you can hear that, it’s a very very jazzy sounding. Swing a little now as an okay I can see how as a little bit of a jazzy feel to it. So that’s the most popular chord progression you’ll find in jazz music.