Mike's Music Musings

I've been thinking a lot about connecting chords, especially with strong voice leading. I have been asking myself, when playing through progressions, how would I use only Drop2 chords to work my way up and down the fretboard?  I started with a simple ii-V and realized I had come up with the intro to "Wave," perhaps in the same way Jobim discovered it. Step 1: Start with the ii-V in C, starting with the root position Dm7.  Work up the fretboard, which is a drop2 G7 3rd inversion.

I was watching a Barry Harris masterclass video about the diminished scale, where he was talking about groupings of four dominant chords based on their relation to the same diminished scale.  I was already aware of this concept, having learned about the diminished scale and that any note of a diminished 7th chord could be lowered by a half step to create a dominant chord.  What struck me is that since these four dominant chords are related, could the dominant V in a ii-V-I progression be substituted for any of its three "siblings"?  How would these related cadences sound compared to the straight V?  I decided to investigate.

Studying how the Coltrane Changes chords connect allows the improviser to create lines which more strongly outline the changes, with better voice leading. This post will only consider the chord movement of I to bIII7 because the other change is a common V-I.  All examples are transposed to the key of C.