Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum How do I analyze this chord progression?

I learned "Colour My World" by Chicago when I was first starting out a few years back. I went back to it, this time trying to figure out how someone composes such a beautiful piece. I'm having trouble analyzing the chord progression. It's in the key of F, but it seems to move around a lot. Here's the progression, which is played twice.

Fmaj7, Am, Bb, Eb9, Abmaj7, Gbmaj7, D9, D7, Gmaj7, Eb9, C7, Fmaj7, Bb, C7, Fmaj7

This is guesswork, but it looks like Am is a chord substitution for Fmaj7, and then there's a circle of fifths progression from Bb to Gbmaj7? Not sure why there isn't a Db between Abmaj7 and Gbmaj7 though.

The part that's really confusing is D9 through Eb9, and then how that connects to what looks like another circle progression starting from C7.

Have you got a score for us to look at? Some of what appear to be autonomous chords might be suspensions, there may be passing notes, short modulations... all sort of things...

Yes would like to see the melody line, lot of liberties have been taken and I chalk this up to pop music moving between major and minor at will (that sound good thing). I think some of the liberties have been taken to harmonize the melody notes and then some of the liberties have been taken because the song writer liked the sound - yes - simple as that, the ear is always the best judge of what is right or wrong.

The D9, D7 I chalk up to being Major because the song writer liked it. And I thought he could not really decide if he wanted to be F major or D minor through out this progression..... That out of the way.....

vi ii is done all the time and then the VII flat whatever comes out of left field, but from there it's back to normal to end the phrase.

Yep, you've got an interesting progression.
http://www.fretplay.com/tabs/c/chicago/color_my_world-tab.shtml

Malcolm

The same chord progression acts as the introduction without any right hand notes so knowing the score is not important. What is important is how the chords are played and how they are formed and inverted to provide harmony and progression to the melody. All of the chords are played as arpeggios up the scale and back down again and two times. For example the Fmaj7 is played F, A, C, E, C, A, and F again. After two times it changes to the Am starting with E, A, C, E, C, A, E once again for two times. The Bb is the same starting on F etc.

Once you get the left hand arpeggio chord progressions down it is an easy song to play. I hope this helps
Woody

Woody - playing the song is no problem - it was one of my beginner pieces. What rekindled my interest is, I saw an interview with the composer (James Pankow), and he said he was listening to one of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, which had a long arpeggio section, and that's what inspired him to write this song. I'm currently trying to improvise in the classical style, and thought I'd use this piece as a learning tool by studying the chord progressions.

Here's the sheet music on musicnotes.com. Although it's a preview, it shows all the above mentioned chord changes.

Malcolm - Regarding the D9, D7, GMaj7 changes, is it normal to switch from minor to major (in this case vi ii to VI II) or vice versa? Also, how does he get from GbMaj7 to D9 in the first place?

I can see how Bach's influence is in this...

forget the chords written over the bars for the guitar, they aren't the "real" chords, but just the guitar accompaniement. I would interpret the "real" chords as:
F F F6 (that is, F in first inversion - not Am!) Bb (a natural progression: I-IV) Eb(another natural progression: IV to IV of IV or I-IV in a new key) Ab (IV of IV to IV of IV of IV or I-IV in a new key) then Db in 6-4 format(not Gb: it's another I-IV in a new key, this time touching onto the "dominant" first), but then instead of having Db going to 5-3 as expected we the Gb of the Db 6-4 chord is interpreted enharmonically as a F# so we move do D, then naturally to G; the following chord is simply a transient chord moving towards C7 (not Eb): D goes to Db on its way to C, B goes to Bb ready to become the seventh. We then get C7 and C7 and finally move naturally so resolve the chord in F.

I hope that's helpful.

Thanks for the detailed response. This raises more questions, so bear with me

First, I'd like to understand what the "real" chords are.

- When you say the Am is really an F6, do you mean F in 6-3 format (first inversion)? The measure has the notes (A,C,E) but no F. Is it OK to call this an inversion of F?

- Similar question on why the Gb is really a Db in 6-4: The measure has the notes (Gb,Bb,Db,F), but that doesn't look like a Db chord in 6-4 (Ab,Db,F).

- What does "5-3" mean?

- How does F# enable a move to D?

Even if there isn't an F I think this would make sense harmonically as one of the Es can be seen as a passing note going down to D. The right hand is deceiving as it isn't a "classic" harmonisation (as you would find in a Bach corale for example)

By 6-4 I mean what you might call I in second inversion (many call I in second inverstion V 6-4), i.e. Db Gb Bb, which then would go to Db F Ab.

By 5-3 I mean the "normal" writing of the Chord, tonic (the bass note) + a third up + a fifth up.

F# is first inversion of D

Pop music will vasolate from minor to major for no other reason than it can. In Pop, Rock and Country I see a lot of what by the rules should be minor chords played as major chords. That is the case with our D9 and D7 -- the D chord in the F key should be a Dm. Now back in the World of rules a vi (Dm) likes to move to the ii or IV -- ii would be Gm, but, here it's a Gmaj7. Why? IMO No reason other than it's his song and he did it that way. This progression is moving at will from minor to major. And in the process throwing in flat chords that do not belong in F. Why, Because he can and he did. There is an unwritten rule that says; "It's OK to go out (of key) if you come back in to finish. That's what happens in this progression.

There are no chord police, no one is passing out tickets. People do what they want because they can. "He" liked the sound so "he" did it "his" way.

Edit - A thought unloosened.
Fmaj7, Am, Bb, Eb9, Abmaj7, Gbmaj7, D9, D7, Gmaj7, Eb9, C7, Fmaj7, Bb, C7, Fmaj7

All those flat chords do as you say take off on a classic back cycle route. But, why he thought it was necessary to back cycle the flat chords right then - I have no idea. Why he even felt the need to go out of key is still a puzzlement. He did bring it back in key to end. Guess it points out good things can happen when you think out of the box.

Malcolm

I found something that may explain why the D9 transition happens. Other than the Gb/F# enharmonic note, all the other notes from the previous measure change by a half step:

Bb->A
F->E
Db(treble)->C
Db(bass)->D

It feels like a chromatic change. I don't know if this was consciously done by the composer, but I can see how it would feel natural since the fingering transition is very smooth, and you end up with a major chord like the rest of the chords in this song.

I tried other major chords here, but couldn't find any that felt quite right. I also tried a minor chord, but that sounds wrong because it makes it gloomy.