Minor Turnaround Progression: An Unexpected Love Affair

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been in Lesson 5 (Minor Turnaround Progression) of PWJ’s Play Lead Sheets with 7th Chords course. It has some weird (to me) chords—half-diminished, iv7s, etc.—and at first I wasn’t sure I would like it. It just sounded so ... lugubrious.

But I'm a good little Piano With Jonny student, so I bit the bullet and started the lesson. There are four suggested lead sheets for learning and practicing this progression:

In This Quiet Hour (Jonny’s 8-bar educational tune for the lesson)
Lullaby of Birdland
You Don’t Know What Love Is
Softly, As In a Morning Sunrise

I started with “In This Quiet Hour” and then began listening seriously to the other three. I made a playlist with multiple recordings of each song and listened while driving, working, walking. I didn’t know any of them when I started, but now I know and love them (except maybe “You Don’t Know What Love Is”… just too depressing!).

Then I printed out The Great Gig Book as a birthday gift to myself, and the fun began. I was surprised by how natural the other three songs felt under my hands. After practicing the progression in various keys, experimenting with left-hand patterns, and living with the sound of it for a while, the harmony stopped feeling strange and started feeling good.

For my “graduation” video for each lead sheet lesson, I simply play the PWJ tune, so I sat down early this morning to work on In This Quiet Hour. It was hard when I first learned it — half-diminished sevenths in intervals, ugh — but it’s so much easier now. Something has definitely shifted!

I liked what I was playing, so I turned on the camera and hoped I’d come up with something worth sharing.

And I did.

This progression that once felt heavy and brooding turned into something reflective and beautiful instead. Not lugubrious at all. In this improv, I lean into a more contemporary, less jazzy sound. I’ve played in this style for years, so the groove feels natural—and I think it fits this progression beautifully.

I’m proud of this one. Not because it’s flashy (it isn’t), but because it feels honest and settled and very much me.

Here it is. Enjoy!

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