resolution in fourths

[frogtime]

hi when i'm trying to make jazz blues progressions, i realized something.

root is C

as you know we can go F7 to Bb7 and resolve it to c7. why? (i think) because Bb7 would be a resolution to Ebmaj7 (Cmin9). and we can choose C7 instead of Cmin7 because we play blues.

anyway.. afterwards , i played F7 / Bb7 / F7 / C7 and it sounded quite smoother to me.

and this tool can be used as a prefix in every blues chord changes for example. (look at bar 4):

12 bar blues:

E7 F7 |: C7 / C7 / C7 / C7 Ab7 | Eb7 Bb7 / <-- this thing
F7 .........
.............. :|


after that i realised that, i can go with that forever. (forget the substition above) Bb7 F7 C7 G7 D7 A7 (cycle of fourths)

i need to know why the "IV7 to I7" is so pretty. of course IV7 is a sub dominant in literature. it's weaker version of V7. and also it is stronger than Bb7 for C7. but why? i don't want to see an answer like "because f7 is G9sus4#5".

are there songs or tunes that this tool is used much? or in what kind of ideas this tool could be widened?

[ksjazzguitar]

Originally Posted by frogtime

as you know we can go F7 to Bb7 and resolve it to c7. why? (i think) because Bb7 would be a resolution to Ebmaj7 (Cmin9). and we can choose C7 instead of Cmin7 because we play blues.

Yeah, that is often called a "backdoor ii-V," an Fm7 to Bb7 to C. You've just changed it to F7. Bars 3 and 4 of "Ladybird" are a classic example. Why does it work? Because it sounds good. What is our explanation? Borrowed chords from the parallel minor is a good explanation. You can also look at it in terms of voice leading - e.g. in "Ladybird" the first two bars have a G in them that leads up to the Ab in the next two bars, and then down to the G again.

Originally Posted by frogtime

and this tool can be used as a prefix in every blues chord changes for example. ...
E7 F7 |: C7 / C7 / C7 / C7 Ab7 | Eb7 Bb7 / <-- this thing
F7 .........
.............. :|

Sorry, I'm not sure where the measures are.

Originally Posted by frogtime

after that i realised that, i can go with that forever. (forget the substition above) Bb7 F7 C7 G7 D7 A7 (cycle of fourths)

I think you have to be careful or you're going to get far away from what sounds like "blues." Blues is typically thought of as 3 four bar sections: four bars around the I, four bars around the IV (resolving back to the I), and four bars around the V (resolving back to the I). If you get too far away from that it starts becoming only nominally a blues.

Originally Posted by frogtime

i need to know why the "IV7 to I7" is so pretty. of course IV7 is a sub dominant in literature. it's weaker version of V7.

It's not a "weaker" version of the dominant, it's its own chord. It's called a subdominant because it is the dominant distance (a 5th) going down (sub, under). In the same way, the mediant is a 3rd up and the submediant is a 3rd down.

I think that F7 to C7 sounds good because it has strong root movement and good voiceleading. It sounds weaker to our ears because our ears have been programed to hear things resolve down and in F7 to C7 the A resolves to Bb and the Eb resolves to E and the P5 resolves up instead of down. It's the same voiceleading, just in the "wrong" direction, so it sounds strong, but not final.

Peace,
Kevin

[frogtime]

thanks for answers. i meant chain of resolution from the forths. as you say the main chords are c7 f7 and g7. and usually in jazzy blues to approach this chords we use 3 6 2 5 philosophy or variations of it (tritone substitutions backdoors etc)

but i think instead of 3 6 2 5 1 , i think b6 - b3 - b7 - 4 - 1 has a nice sounding. i did the idea in fourth bar before resolutiong IV7. "/"s are measeures and "|"s stands for quick changes. also i used the same tool in the beginning. before the start of rhythm. i approach to I7 with the same idea.

you think it distorts to blues?

[ksjazzguitar]

Originally Posted by frogtime

but i think instead of 3 6 2 5 1 , i think b6 - b3 - b7 - 4 - 1 has a nice sounding.

I don't know, to my ear it sounds odd. I don't think that you can generalize the IV-I movement as a strong movement - a lot of it's power comes from the fact that it is resolving to I.

Originally Posted by frogtime

"/"s are measeures and "|"s stands for quick changes

The more common way to use those is that "/" is for beats of repeating the chord and "|" separates measures. So, a "standard" jazz blues might be:

C7 / / / | F7 / / / | C7 / / / | Gm7 / C7b13 / |
F7 / / / | F#dim7 / / / | C7 / B7 / | Bb7 / A7b9 / |
Dm7 / / / | G7 / / / | C7 / A7 / | Dm7 / G7 / |

Can you write out your progression using that type of notation?

Originally Posted by frogtime

you think it distorts to blues?

I think that every reharm takes it farther away from the original. That is not always a bad thing, but at some point you've created something new. I think that as long as the reharms target the key events (landing on subdominant harmony in m. 5, e.g.) then you can still keep a lot of the original flavor.

Peace,
Kevin