Hey, guys. Marc here back again with you in the studio for Jazz Guitar Insights. So in this episode we want to do the II-V-I. I'm going to teach you and show you how you can master the two for 1 in 3 simple, very efficient steps. And you'll be surprised because the third step is typically what people begin with.
And if you apply the first two and you use the method I'm teaching, it's going to help you drastically to simplify things and to make things more beautiful, easier, faster. So let's get going. Welcome to Jazz Guitar Lessons, where we help guitarists learn jazz faster, express themselves more fluently, and have fun along the way. My name is Marc and if you're looking to learn jazz, form better practice habits, and especially if you enjoy French accent, make sure to subscribe!
Okay, before we dig into the first step of the three, I will get you that we have a step zero, which is get your bearings around what A251 is. Quick recap assuming we are in the key of C major, right? So CD you have that sound. So the 251 progression is the progression with the first chord being the second quarter C, D know that this has to be a minor sound, right?
D minor followed by a G which is five one, two three, four five, and right which is the five. The fifth. Note that the fifth chord of the C major scale, so it's a G7. So we go from a D minor to G7, so minor to dominant and down to a C major right. So there's several ways to do this.
We could do very simple voicings like this.
With just three notes. Or we could do full drop twos right. People will do this. Or like have all inversions. Or we could do the very fancy like.
Like all of these chords are up to four alterations. But mind you, we will have to remember it's a minor chord going through a dominant chord going to a major chord. That's all it is really practical because those three chord qualities are also is 90% of the music, which makes things really easy for us. So get your bearings around the fact that this is on the second, the fifth and the first degree of the scale you're working on.
And there are other degrees. Typically a scale has seven degrees, but in this case we have the first three. And if you were to switch keys for instance I'll go up C that E-flat major you can recover the same steps going oh that's the F minor is my two B-flat, dominant is my five, and E-flat major is my one.
You could be literally moving frets on the fretboard to have that same sound in any of the 12 keys, so long as you can recover that. For the rest of this podcast, we're simply going to look into the C major one for simplicity. So let's dig into the first step. So you'll be surprised again, because the third step is typically where people tell you to begin.
I'm going to put these preludes. So first step is to find out what changes and what stays the same at the point of the change. So going from the two to the five, something's bound to happen harmonically. And going from the five to the one, something's bound to happen harmonically as well. And when I say harmonically means the harmony shifts, something happens, not just the bass note.
And melodically it will also. Well, let's just say you're an improviser. You're playing jazz guitar, so it will inform your melodic direction and your improvization. Right? So what changes you've heard me harping on a lot about, oh, hit the thirds, have hit the thirds, hit the thirds. That's how you solo. But effectively that's my step one to tell you the note that requires the most resolution, the more the note that's less stable here.
So we'll say that's a D minor. I go to A and F that's very stable. But that note move, if you really listening very very closely you'll hear. I'll sing it a hundred for you. You hear from God all this note has a natural tendency to want to go down. What's that note? If you're listening to this in your car, it's the seventh degree of the D minor.
Seven. You go D minor seven, 123 4 or 5, six, seven. So now I'm playing the root, the third and the seventh of. If it weren't for that tension, the chord wouldn't want to go anywhere. So that beautiful C note wants to go down a half step to the B, and the B just so happens to be the third of G7.
It's a third degree. All right. So that's my step. One is like look at the two going to the five. What happens. The seventh degree of the two is considered attention in classical music terms. Right. And it goes down. And where does it go down to. It's happens to be landing on a very safe spot. Oh, this is the third.
This is my G7 chord. So I come from here.
You hear it right. And what happens next you think? Well, that note on my G. That all you hear it fall down, right? That's the seventh of G again. And then it wants to go down to the the third of C. So if you can just narrow this down in your improv and look at it and go, wait, there's one really important thing that happens at the bar line.
Not during the bar, at the bar line, at the change of measure, the change of harmony. It's that darn seventh star wants to go down. And quite frankly, you guys, if you play like all the things you are selling by starlight or blues, that's always the case. That's always what happens in that kind of traditional harmony. The sound not like the free jazz and fusion and this and that, but like in terms of song songs that we know and love and we can sing, that's pretty much always the case, right?
So that's step one. So I'll reiterate, I'll come to court for one round. So want to get three for our to get three for. I'll just play the seven descending that to get three to the. I'll do that again. 1234D minor seven to resolve the seven down to the third resolve the seven down to the third to getting to.
I'll do it and shut up. To the right. So that's really your step one. Your step two is to decide. So you're an improviser. You have to decide what you're going to focus on. Are you focusing on the change from 2 to 5 or to change from 5 to 1 pitch. Then you will improvise and you will always plug in your resolution.
That's your second step, because if you try to do it over, say a longer progression like Autumn leaves or Fly Me to the moon, you have too much to consider. There's too many things in your mind at once. So say narrow down. Pick. Set up your eye real backing track. Improvise like a maniac. Like I think the maximum is a 30 repeats on I reel, but 30 repeats on put 100 bpm.
Not too fast and just improvise anything you already have under your fingers, scales, arpeggios, looks like whatever. Play those. But at the point of chord change, pick until your transition between the two and the five chord is really smooth, and I'll just point out that I think it's a mistake that, some teachers make while teaching that language of jazz.
Kepler. You. I've already seen people say, let's master the 251. I wrote three books. I wrote a book about the two. I wrote a book about the five, and I wrote a book about the one. So it's like, well, you're tackling these things like they're isolated, but they're not. Because to play well on a two, five one, what's matters is how we connect between the chords and not what we do on the chords individually.
So reiterate step one resolve your sevens. Your sevens for each will fold naturally onto the next chord. Hey everyone, just a quick break here. If you're loving this episode and you want to elevate your own. Just our skills, reach out to us. We've guided thousands of guitarists in becoming accomplished jazzers beyond their wildest dreams, so check the link in the description or visit Jazz Guitar Lessons dot net to get started today.
Okay, now back to the episode. Step two pick one of the resolutions you want to work on between the two and the five or the five and the one. Improvise and always plug it in. Do from the 2 to 5, then once you're sick of it, go from the five to the one. And once you're sick of that, do both and you will have a semblance of, you know, improvization that makes sense.
Third step is going to be pretty simple. It's where the other people, the other books and teachers and classes start. You should definitely build more vocabulary and more on each quarter. If it's demon or seven, you can practice your.
Bunch of arpeggios I just played or pentatonic scales or, how about the.
You know, whatever bebop scales or passing lines or patterns that you have. So now's the time to do it after you've understood and heard where it's connecting after you've narrowed down and work on the connection individually, individually, then you can go, yeah, there's tons of things I could do in the G7. Yep. After you made it safely, after you resolved, after you know where it's going, then it's time to go.
Okay. I'm going to learn all the scales for Mixolydian. Oh, I want to do a G7 or. That's cool. Perfect. Try it on something. Yeah, absolutely. But that's done as adding the meat around the bone. If there's no bone, you cannot had the meat. All right. And my final recommendation while you're listening to this podcast of course. Like and subscribe, leave me a comment for anything you have questions about or get in touch with us, but I'll leave you with that if you tackle standards meaning autumn leaves summer time during that dream round.
Midnight blue and green alone together, body and soul. Solo. You know I could. I could sit here all day and just recite tunes. If you do those, even the Parker tunes, even the bebop tunes, you will encounter 2 or 5 ones in all of the friggin keys. So it's a really worthwhile endeavor to learn the hands, to learn the chord progressions, to be able to comp and to learn to improvise with basics like this, to resolve on a two, five, one.
Because that's what the songs are made up of. They're the bricks, the building blocks of all of the tunes we love and play and improvise over. And furthermore, you know, the the putty, the cement between the bricks is that connection between the two and the five and the five and one. And eventually you look in tunes, you're like, oh, they just take that cycle in the extended like autumn leaves and is an example, like, okay, that's sort of a two and a five, and then you go to the next one, but still you're still cycling the same direction, you're still cycling, but instead of doing just a two, five, one, you have another chord after the one and after that chord you add another one and another one. But the pattern is systematic. So if you learn to play like this in a cycle of fourths, regardless of the quality, there's no song that you will encounter that you'll be surprised about because you go, oh yeah, it's cycling. It will go to for like the Blues or for minor, I mean the Roman numeral four.
And then we go, oh, here's a bridge or, you know, the B section, and it's going through a different key. For instance, body and soul. You're in D-flat major. And then you go up a half step to D major for eight bars. And that's a tune. So after and you cycle within those two, you cycle D-flat, you cycle on the and then wrap up.
So if you learn to play on your two five, one in several keys, you can tackle any songs. And my my biggest beef with jazz education in general is people not tackling the songs that go like, no, I want to learn first. Learn on my 212 keys. Let's let's like procrastinating perfectionism. You don't need to go there. You should definitely look at the songs and then tackle what's the 2000 that are in the songs.
And it will teach you what? Like it's, you know, the apprenticeship. Apprenticeship you call it. It's like learning on the job so that that's exactly what you do. Like, instead of preparing and training parenting for the job, just do the job and you'll encounter all the two five things you could ever dream of. And yes, you can replicate this with a minor two five once.
Okay, on that note, I'm Marc from Jazz Guitar Lessons. I'll see you in the next episode. Take care. Bye.
