Music Theory Monday 22 | Progressions that Feel in Key pt II (Patreon)

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Hi Everyone,

In this lesson we continue where we left off on the previous lesson: Taking basic Major Key chord progressions and substituting chords to make the progression more interesting.

We go a step further in this lesson with secondary dominants and how to make them feel like they belong in the key, as well as some mixolydian substitutions. We talk a bit about Lydian substitutions too.

This whole lesson is about exploring and getting to know the Major Key. At the end you get a nice little cheat sheet for writing major chord progressions. Hopefully with this lesson and the previous one you'll have a little more familiarity with how to make a major chord progression "feel" like it's in key, or you'll be able to deliberately muddy the waters if you don't want it to be obvious which key you're in.

General homework ideas for the community forum: 

1. Write some basic 7th chord progressions that convince the listener you're in right key

2. Write some chord progressions that muddy the waters so your listener might struggle to figure out the key

3. Write some basic progressions using I IV V, then substitute for relative minors. THEN, on a second line, swap out the diatonic (standard) chords for a few others (like secondary dominants or mixolydian stuff.) 

Experiment, have fun, write progressions.

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