My NYU pop theory class is going from non-functional harmony to the most functional harmony there is, the ii-V-I cadence. It’s subdominant to dominant to tonic, Western tonal harmony the way God and Beethoven intended.
The ii-V-I comes in two flavors, major and minor. The major version is simple. Take some major scale, for example, C major.
- To make the ii chord, start on scale degree two and add every alternate scale tone. In C, start on D and add F and A, which produces a Dm chord.
- To make the V chord, start on scale degree five and add every alternate scale tone. In C, start on G and add B and D, which produces a G chord.
- To make the I chord, start on scale degree one and add every alternate scale tone. In C, start on C and add E and G, which produces a C chord.
Add more alternating scale tones onto each chord to get sevenths, ninths and higher chord extensions.
ii-V-I by ethanhein1
The minor version is more complicated, because you will need both the natural and harmonic minor scales. Better yet, think of a single minor scale whose seventh degree can be either flat or natural.
- To make the ii chord, start on scale degree two and add every alternate scale tone. In C minor, start on D and add F and A-flat, which produces a D° chord.
- To make the V chord, start on scale degree five and add every alternate scale tone… but make sure to use the raised/natural seventh, not the flat one. In C minor, start on G and add B (not B-flat) and D, which produces a G chord.
- To make the i chord, start on scale degree one and add every alternate scale tone. In C minor, start on C and add E-flat and G, which produces a Cm chord. (The lowercase “i” just means that it’s a minor chord.)
Keep adding alternating scale degrees to get sevenths and ninths.
The ii-V-I progression is common in Western tonal music across many styles and eras. The second and third measures of Bach’s Prelude No. 5 in D major from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1 spell out Em to A7 to D, ii-V-I in D major. The Beatles use the same chords going into the first verse of “If I Fell“. But if you really want to explore the possibilities of ii-V-I, you need to listen to jazz. Here are some representative tunes.
“Autumn Leaves”
The Cannonball Adderley recording is my favorite.
After the beautifully moody intro in G Dorian, the tune proper begins at 0:52 with Cm7 to F7 to Bbmaj7, ii-V-I in Bb major. (It then moves to Ebmaj7, the IV chord.) The second phrase at 1:01 is Aø7 to D7 to Gm6, ii-V-i in G minor. The whole tune essentially consists of ii-V-I in Bb major and ii-V-i in G minor, so it’s a nice clear learning example.
“Tune-Up”
This tune is credited to Miles Davis but was probably written by Eddie Vinson. I like the version on Cookin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet.
There are four phrases in the tune. The first is Em7 to A7 to Dmaj7, ii-V-I in D major. The second phrase is Dm7 to G7 to Cmaj7, ii-V-I in C major. The third phrase is Cm7 to F7 to Bbmaj7, ii-V-I in Bb major. Are you detecting a pattern here? The fourth phrase shakes things up, going Em7 to F7 to Bbmaj7 to A7. This is not as random as it might appear; it’s ii-V in D major with V-I in Bb major inserted into the middle.
“Have You Met Miss Jones”
I love the version by The Oscar Peterson Trio, it is possibly the most perfect swing I have ever heard in my life.
All the ii-V-I excitement is in the bridge. Listen at 0:42. There’s a pickup of Cm7 and F7, and then the bridge itself begins on Bbmaj7. That’s ii-V-I in Bb. Then it goes Abm7 to Db7 to Gbmaj7, ii-V-I in Gb. From there, it goes Em7 to A7 to Dmaj7, ii-V-I in D major. There’s one more ii-V-I in Gb major, and then ii-V-I in Bb major to bring us home. These keys are as distantly related to each other as they can possibly be.
“Giant Steps”
Many people have recorded this tune, but the most iconic version remains the first one.
I won’t talk through everything that happens in here (I have a whole other blog post for that), but it’s all V-I, ii-V-I and ii-V progressions in the keys of B major, G major and Eb major. This may have been inspired by the bridge of “Have You Met Miss Jones”, which uses that same idea of major keys a major third apart from each other. “Giant Steps” gets way too much attention from the academy, but if you are interested in how you can move through distantly related keys via ii-V-I progressions, Coltrane is your guy.
“Central Park West”
This tune is less famous than “Giant Steps”, but it’s a gentler introduction to Coltrane’s approach to moving around the keys via ii-Vs.
The tune is a series of ii-V-I progressions in B major, D major, Ab major and F major. Then it goes through B major and D major again before coming for a landing in B major, repeating Bmaj7 and C#m7 over a relaxing B pedal. Beautiful.
“Four”
Here’s another jazz classic where the first recording is the canonical one.
This tune isn’t as complicated as “Giant Steps” but it’s pretty complicated. Here’s a chart. It’s almost all ii-V progressions, in the keys of Eb major, Db major, Gb major, E major and C minor. Some of the ii-Vs resolve to I, but most of them don’t, which accounts for the sense of frequent harmonic twists and turns.
I haven’t talked much about the minor ii-V-i, but here’s a Benny Golson tune that uses a lot of them.
The tune begins in C minor. It moves from there through the keys of G minor and D minor before returning home to C minor at the end, mostly via ii-V-i in those keys.
So that’s how you use ii-V-I in jazz. The question now becomes: why should you care? If you want to play or compose jazz, that’s one thing, but I don’t have too many aspiring jazz musicians in my classes. Do you need to concern yourself with this progression for other pop styles? Maybe if you want to sound intentionally retro, like Laufey or Norah Jones? I am also not-so-secretly hoping that exposure to jazz gets some of my students interested in it, that their aspirations might broaden. I have had past students tell me that they are actually glad that I made them listen to so much Herbie Hancock, that knowing who he is has been valuable to them. So maybe someone will come out of class fired up about Miles or Coltrane. I guess time will tell.