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→Circle Progression
|Music Theory - Diatonic Chord Progressions#Cadences|Cadences}}
Another way to progress through chords is given to us by the [[Circle of Fifths|circle of fifths]]. We haven't covered that yet, but we will soon. Essentially, it arranges notes in order of fifths, with each note being a perfect fifth higher than the previous note as we traverse the circle clockwise. Here's the notes from C{{flat}} to C{{sharp}} along the circle of fifths.
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Enharmonically, G{{flat}} and F{{sharp}} are the same pitch; so the circle is just repeating at that point, indicated by the range above the notes above.
If we use only diatonic notes for any particular major key, the 7th note does not have a diatonic perfect fifth but a diminished fifth. In C Major, B-F is a diminished fifth instead of a perfect fifth; however, we can still make the circleby using ''diatonic'' 5ths, substituting in the d5 as appropriate. This makes the "circle" smaller:
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F - C - G - D - A - E - B - F - C
We have already learned that the strongest harmonic resolution is from Dominant to Tonic (or V - I). The circle progression makes use of this - we simply traverse the circle counter-clockwise, using so that note as the root note of the next diatonic chord in is a 5th below (or inversely a 4th above) the sequencecurrent one. So in the key of C Major, a complete circle progression is:
C - F - B{{dim}} - Em - Am - Dm - G - C
I - IV - vii{{dim}} - iii - vi - ii - V - I
We haven't talked about that [[B Diminished|B{{dim}} or (B Diminished )]] chord yet, so let's leave it out. Let's also leave out the IV chord, since a IV - iii resolution may be a bit awkward. This leaves us with:
C F Em Am Dm G C I IV iii vi ii V I e-0---1---0---0---1---3---0-- b-1---1---0---1---3---3---1-- g-0---2---0---2---2---0---0-- d-2---3---2---2---0---0---2-- a-3-------2---0-------2---3-- e---------0-----------3------
Every chord leads into the next pretty seamlessly. Notice we basically have 2 passes through the tonic - subdominant - dominant - tonic paradigm of harmonic function. I - IV - iii - vi and vi - ii - V - I.
The circle progression gives us a basic roadmap of how to get from any chord to any other chord in the same key. Knowing harmonic function allows us to take "shortcuts" and jump some intermediate chords. For example, we know the harmonic function of IV is pre-dominant, so we can jump from IV to any dominant function chord. Let's choose V. That leaves us with I - IV ... - V - I. We're back to our basic I - IV - V - I example!