The standard Western chromatic scale has twelve semitones. When arranged according to the circle of fifths, it looks like this:
Looking above at the marked chords from "Have You Met Miss Jones?", D-Gb-Bb are spaced a major third apart. On the circle of fifths it appears as a triangle:
By rotating the triangle, all of the thirds cycles can be shown. Note that there are only four unique thirds cycles. This approach can be generalized; different interv ...
David Demsey, professor and saxophonist, cites a number of influences leading toward's Coltrane's development of these changes. Miles Davis, who mentored Coltrane in many ways, was in the late 1950s moving toward the modal style of Kind of Blue. In playing that style, Coltrane found it "easy to apply the harmonic ideas I had... I started experimenting because I was striving for more individual development." He also played with pianist Thelonious Monk during this period, whose unusual harmonic and rhythmic innovations contrib ...
ii V I ii V I
| Em7 | A7 | DM7 - | Dm7 | G7 | CM7 - |
These are the first eight bars of the Miles Davis composition "Tune Up." The chord changes are relatively simple, the ii-V-I progression being extremely common in jazz - the basis for, among other things, the oft-recorded standard, "Autumn Leaves".
ii * * I ii * * I
| Em7 F7 | BbM7 Db7 | GbM7 A7 | ...
