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The Prison Progression

I'm taking the PWJ "Play Piano with Lead Sheets and Seventh Chords" course, and the first two chord progressions he covers are the Cycle of Fifths Progression (which I wrote about here) and the Turnaround progression, which goes from I to vi7 to ii7 to V7 and back to I.

The turnaround progression is what I think of as the "Prison Progression."

Do you remember my early blog post about the rusty lock and key? Where I felt like I was stuck inside a room and couldn't get out? One of the elements of that room was the Prison Progression. Whenever I would try to write music or improvise on my own, I would try all kinds of different chords, but I would keep falling back in to the Prison Progression.

My left hand would play broken root-position chords (I wrote about that here and elsewhere), my right hand would mildly improvise a tune, and I would move slowly, predictably, from I to vi7 to ii7 to V7 and back to I.

Why?

Why couldn't I break out of that pattern? I have a few thoughts about that.

Laziness. I think part of it was that improvisation is something I did when I didn't have the brain energy to actually work on a classical piece I was learning. Or when I found myself at a piano with no sheet music. I would just start on C and move through the progression.

Sometimes I would get wild and crazy and move a little further, doing something like the Cycle of Fifths Progression, or maybe even throwing in a secondary dominant and switching to a new key. But even in the new key (especially in the new key), I would always end up back in the Prison Progression. When I got sick of it, I'd go do something else. Or I'd stop procrastinating and move on to the classical pieces I was supposed to be practicing in the first place.

Lack of Creativity. I think part of the problem, too, is possibly that I'm just not all that musically creative. It's painful to think that ... but it may be true. If I were musically creative, I would have worked harder to get out of the Prison. Or perhaps I would naturally have wandered out. Or it never would have been a prison in the first place.

Lack of a Teacher. I have a feeling I would have gone further in this world of writing and improvisation if I'd had a mentor to guide me along. But classical teachers don't teach this kind of thing (or at least not the ones I've had). And I was too shy to seek anyone else out.

It Was "Good Enough." Another part of the problem: The music is pretty and relaxing. It's uninteresting and very easy to play, but it's pretty and relaxing. And who doesn't love a bit of pretty and relaxing music? When I play in this style, eveyone says, "Oh, how beautiful!" And honestly? I'm a glutton for easy praise.

My New-Age Prison-Progression Sound

Here is a snippet of what I played this morning. I was in a melancholy mood, a little depressed, even, and I just didn't have the energy to work on any of my "real" music. So I turned off my brain and just let my hands do what they know how to do ... my old new-age prison-progression sound. Do I love this sound? No. I don't even particularly like it. But it's something I can do without thinking, and so I do it. Enjoy!

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