An Interesting 2-5 Progression

When playing a 2-5 progression, here’s a way to add a few interesting chords in between.

The principle is that you walk up from the 2 chord to the 5 chord.

i.e. 2 3 4 ♭5 5.

Alternatively, to make it easier, you can take out the 4 and walk up as follows:

2 3 ♭5 5

An example of this is:

2minor7 1maj/3 4maj7 ♭5(with a quartal chord of its flattened 7th note) 513

The fourth chord there deserves more explanation.

Let’s assume we are in the key of D, what does a ♭5 (with a quartal chord of its flattened 7th note) mean?

Well, first ♭5 tone of D♭major will be G.

The 7th note of G major is F

Then we play a quartal chord of F (F B E) on the right hand over G on the left hand.

In the key of D♭ the walk-up will be as follows

Chord LH RH
E♭minor7 E B D G
D♭major / F F A D F
G♭major7 G F B D
G (with a quartal chord of its flattened 7th note) G F B E
A♭13 A G B D F

Below is a recording of the first variant:

And of the second variant.

I use the second variant in Thank You Lord posted earlier. See if you can spot it!

Enjoy.

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