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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