Quick chord progression theory question..

[stratotak]

I know  the formula for Major chord progression. 1,4,5 are Maj. 2,3,6 are Min and the 7th is diminished.What about for Min key.If I wanted to play a song in key Cmin what would 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 be?? Im guessing 1 would be minor and 7 would still be diminished??If so what about the rest?

 

[The Burninator]

1,4 and 5 will be minor, 3,6 and 7 would be major, 2 would be sweep picked diminished.

[JonR]

 

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stratotak wrote:

 

 

I know  the formula for Major chord progression. 1,4,5 are Maj. 2,3,6 are Min and the 7th is diminished.What about for Min key.If I wanted to play a song in key Cmin what would 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 be?? Im guessing 1 would be minor and 7 would still be diminished??If so what about the rest?

 

Firstly, this is not what chord "progression" usually means. A "chord progression" is the sequence of chords in a song (which probably wouldn't contain every possible chord, and might be in any order). What you're talking about is "a harmonised scale", or the set of "diatonic" chords within a key.

For a minor key, you start with the relative major.  The relative major of a minor key is 3 half-steps up. So for C minor that's Eb major.  You simply take the chords in Eb major and renumber them starting from Cm:

Cm Ddim Eb Fm Gm Ab Bb

However, a common alteration in a minor key is what's known as "harmonic minor", which means raising the 7th degree, usually when approaching the tonic.  That in turn means the V chord becomes major (G) and you get a new viidim chord: Bdim. 

The idea is to give a stronger sense of resolution to Cm.  Compare the difference between Gm>Cm and G>Cm.  (Because it only matters when approaching Cm, the raised 7th is temporary and doesn't usually affect the other chords in the key.  If it did, the Eb would become Ebaug, which occurs but is rare.)

That gives the following likely set of chords in C minor:

Cm Ddim Eb Fm G(7) Ab (Bb or Bdim)

You might get either Bb or Bdim; Bdim would be more common in jazz, Bb in rock; rarely both together in the same song.  Generally Gm would be rare; G(7) more common, in both jazz and rock.

 

NB: the ii chord (Ddim) is a different kind from the vii chord (Bdim).  Add a 7th (from the scale) to see the difference:

D F Ab C = Dm7b5 (half-diminished)

B D F Ab = Bdim7 (full diminished)

That's what makes the Bdim in C minor different from the Bdim in C major; that would be B D F A = Bm7b5.

 

[stratotak]

 I just wanted to make the pancakes.Thats all.Thanks for the advanced music theory answer but I just wanted a simple answer for dummies answer...lol..