 Hi everyone, this is Jason here from Nathaniel and in this lesson We are going to explore the very popular chord progression two five one used very often in jazz music also pop music and a lot of genres actually and in this lesson We are going to look at two versions of the two five one first off the major two five one And then we later on look at the minor two five one So do stick around till the end of the lesson. Let's now get started Okay, so I'm going to take the G major scale for our demonstration One sharp right F sharp So when we refer to a chord progression We are generally looking at a degree or a scale degree within that particular scale So if I take let's say the G major scale and if I'm trying to build a two five one What needs to happen is a you need to know your scale. So write it down G A B C D E F sharp G Okay, and within this framework the two of the G major scale is going to end up being a Okay, so G a That's your two So the chord also is going to be a something it could be a minor or a minor 7th You know depending on the type of chord. We are trying to build but the 2 is always going to be a and the function is always going to be a Something a minor or a minor 7th. Okay, so a becomes the 2 Okay, and now coming to the 5 That's five scale steps we get our D D becomes the 5 and then the progression ends with the 1 Which is the tonic. That's G. We also call the 2 as the predominant chord the 5 as the dominant chord which takes you back to the tonic. So that's a D G That's 2 5 1 Okay, a D G So now playing it with single roots may not be the end goal here We would like to play it with chords and colorful chords So to develop our chords, we could start with triads triads is a very easy approach You write down your entire scale in a neat round circle and then with each point or with each root if you will With G for example, you form a set of three notes GBD which is G skip the a get the B and then skip the C and then you get the D So you get your triads. So that's one major 2 minor 3 minor 4 major 5 major 6 minor 7 diminished that's pretty much it. So 1 4 5 are going to have a major quality 2 3 6 are going to have a minor quality and then the 7 is going to have a diminished quality We've done a lot of lessons on chords formation and the theory behind it So do check out our description as well if you're finding this a little bit more advanced because 2 5 1 The goal of this lesson is to start with some advanced harmony or extended harmony or seventh chords as we call it Okay, so you need to know your triads before we delve into the seventh chord domain. So triads again 1 major 2 minor 3 minor 4 major 5 major 6 minor and 7 diminished So the chords we need for our lesson or our progression for today's lesson is the 2 5 1. So that's going to be a A minor the 5 D major and the 1 so you also feel that magnetic Instability right how it wants to just like gravity the a minor Who wants to go to D major which then resolves to G. It actually feels very stable there For your ear also try singing the roots of each chord A D G 2 5 1 Okay, so now that we've built the triads to make it sound very Jazzy or harmonically interesting what we do is we extend the triad by building seventh chord So to build a seventh chord is just like a triad How you got thirds one? the first third a to c I'm teaching you this on the two chord 2 minor so a minor is already here and we want to make it a bit more You know colorful. So to do that you just Continue and form another third From e a c e g This creates a seventh chord in this instance. It's an a minor seventh. So one way to form a seventh chord could be Form the triad first in the circle of major scale notes a c e And then add the seventh note Which is another third so it's just a continuation of thirds really and how do you get a third just skip the one in Between and you get a third. So a minor seventh another way to form a minor seventh If you know your intervals would be a minor chord and add on a minor seventh. So Oh That's the minor seventh okay normally minor a minor seventh So this is your first chord, okay So in a major scale, what's gonna happen the two minor which was a triad can get colored up And now it becomes a two minor seventh. Okay Now what happens to the five major? Five major ended up being D major, but when we color it with the extended third or the seventh if you will And also remember these are diatonic thirds diatonic means from the scale thirds third third third Not that one because C sharp is not part of the G major scale G major has one sharp namely F sharp so That's your normal vanilla D major and That's what we call as D seventh or D dominant seventh. How did we get the D dominant seventh again? We got the triad and we are adding another third or with respect to D We're adding this interval, which is again a minor seventh. So with a We added the minor seventh to the minor chord Getting an a minor seventh sound with the D. You add a minor seventh to the major chord to give you a dominant flavor Okay, so all these are four note chords again called as extended chords or seventh chord So two chord becomes two minor seventh Five chord becomes D dominant seventh Which is five and the last chord in this two five one chord progression is going to be the one chord You could start off with the one being obviously G major and then extend it or color it with a Additional third what is that F sharp? Okay There we go another way to look at this is It's a major chord plus a major seventh, okay So the result in chord will be a major seventh chord Okay, so that's two minor seventh going to five dominant seventh ending up to Tonic G major so a good way to play this on the piano initially could perhaps be to play the root of the Chord in your left hand and play the entire chord with four fingers in your right hand a minor seventh D dominant seventh dissolving to G But also look at up a gating it maybe And you'll observe when we do a Two five one giving a bit more importance to the one why because the one is the home So you stay there a bit more often, so it's sort of like two five one one you repeat that one chord at the end so Repeat the one there So you could either play the chords as blocks Block means together or you could arpeggiate the chords Okay Right, so that was the two five one chord progression on the key of G major I hope the theory was clear at the end of the day It's about writing down the scale in a circle plotting out all your diatonic triads and then extending that with sevenths Okay, and the seventh will either be a major seventh for the major chord or a minor seventh for the minor seventh and the Dominant seventh chord, right so this is about the two five one on a major tonality right in other words The entire scale being major and the overall music tends to sound a bit more positive However, this sounds really beautiful on the minor, which I also want to teach you Okay So on the minor the quality of the chords will change because you're deriving it from the parent minor scale Right you could derive it from the G harmonic minor Or the G natural minor Ultimately a minor scale will need to have definitely a minor third has to be there Then definitely the sixth that gives you a very minor quality flat three Flat six and then the seventh in the harmonic minor Will stay the major seventh F sharp in the natural minor Comes down to F. Okay, which is a flat seven so harmonic minor natural minor So if you're building a two five one actually the roots on G are going to be the same Isn't it the two of G minor whether it's harmonic or natural is a the five is Still D and the one is still G So if you have to build it now you have to look at the chord quality So if you take the two now a and try building a triad You're gonna not get a minor chord anymore, right? You're gonna get a diminished chord That's minor That's diminished so it starts with a diminished chord at the two So that's to diminished and you could color it or extend it With a third there Which takes you to the G So we call that a two minor seven flat five chord Sounds good on its own actually you don't need to do much right Feels a bit Unstable doesn't it so it needs the five and then the one which we are going to see so in the minor domain is gonna be the two and then we need to do the five and In the minor especially in the harmonic minor tonality the five Is still going to be dominant because it's exactly what we learned in the major because there's this F sharp and That's a very common five usage. We We may not do the five minor we'll prefer The five dominant seven because that has a pull right. It's pushing you to the one so a minor seventh Dominant seven Resolving to It could resolve to G minor seventh, which is a G minor plus some Minor seventh remember minor tonality the one chord has to be minor. Okay? Now if you are a natural minor or if you want a more stable resolution You could do it with minor seventh if you want a more unstable resolution You could end with a G minor major seventh rather weird to say but That's what it is. Okay. So maybe I'm gonna confine our study to two minus seventh flat five going to five dominant seventh resolving to One minor seven which is more commonly used especially in jazz progressions, okay, and in some in some jazz progressions They actually combine the major two five one and the minor two five one it both sort of happens together So doing the whole thing a minor seven flat five D dominant seven G minor seven Okay Okay Now this is not how a piano player would Generally go about playing these chords because it's really hard. It's a four-note chord, right? So we need to figure out a few ways to voice it or to hold it so that we don't keep looking down, right? And this is where inversions come in. So if I do something like an a I'm gonna go back to the major which is a minor seventh D dominant G major seven so if I do a minor seventh like this, I Could invert the chord By playing a D dominant this way. I Know that A and C are common for the D major or D dominant seventh chord. So I hold those shapes That's the voicing so A C E G AC D F sharp and in the bass you want to continue to play D which is the root of the chord Otherwise the sound of the chord is going to change so And then how do we resolve it F sharp and D are already common for the G major So I just slide these two down And I get my G major seven so A minor seventh D seventh with an inversion Resolving back to G major seven. So this may be a nice way to play it. You can decide if you like it here Or maybe you could play it here Sounds nicer there I guess Right and then coming to the two five one minor That's the minor seven flat five Dominant seventh ending with a minor seventh, okay So with inversions you tend to look down less right you tend to focus more on the sound of what you're doing Right, so let's just conclude this lesson by just improvising a little bit I'm just going to try and sing and I'll try to focus on the chord tones Which I also want you to do right before getting into a lot of melodic stuff The assumption is you're trying to figure out the chords in this lesson So let's get the chords going and a great way to get it is to trust your piano instincts So distract yourself and make sure you sing while you play that can really help you to get these Movements going in a very very professional way. So A minor seventh D seventh G with inversions, right? On the chord tones You can build some nice melodic stuff because it's already a four-note chord so That's already giving you a lot of melodic options, right? And once you're done with exploration of the chord tones You can then try to vocalize the non chord tones which we actually call as color color intervals or Tensions which are the 9s the 11s and the 13s or instead of all that fancy theory You can just find notes which are not there in the chord But still part of the G major world, right? So one note would be B and you can go That's I can't play it with my hand, but I can sing it with my voice so Okay You can sing a new note which is not there in the D dominant seventh chord so You can do a few other notes as well which are not part of the scale Now the ninth maybe let's sing the ninths of every chord So that's B which is the ninth of a minor seventh That's E which is the ninth of D and that's the ninth of G major 7 Okay, and just have some fun with these chords build a melody Pretty much on the chord tones, but you can use a few of the other scale notes Okay, same thing for the minor 2 5 1 let's just jam a bit Sing on the harmonic minor maybe Improvise on that scale Beautiful sound right Okay So once you've got a hold on the 2 5 ones major and minor I would highly encourage you to practice this on a few other scales Maybe F maybe C major whatever it may be the more scales you learn the more Proficient and the more professional you're gonna be on the piano You'll be able to play and jam with a lot more Musicians and instrumentalists and be a lot more comfortable on stage and in the studio so practice it on as many scales as possible and Moving forward what I'm also going to share with you in the following lesson will be how you can voice 2 5 ones even more harmonically Densely on the piano right to create a very interesting texture to make the chords a lot more open sounding And a lot more jazzy if you will right we're also going to look at how to play these chords in some exciting rhythms I've developed a couple of Latin rhythms as well So do follow this entire series on 2 5 1 and we are going to try and build this with as many videos as we can But first off you need to practice the theory form it write it get used to the shapes get used to the inversions the Shifting get your singing going train your ear Strong foundation then next video We are going to do voicings and the video after that we are going to do rhythm patterns again This is Jason here from Nathaniel. Thanks a ton for watching this lesson on 2 5 1 Do like the video if you can share the video with your musician friends Leave us a comment for stuff you'd like to learn in the future and more importantly Do hit the subscribe button if you haven't already hit the bell icon for notifications and I will see you in the next video Cheers