Standard changes

The cadence most of the standard repertoire is built out of. Two bars of approach and two of arrival; learn it in twelve keys and most of a tune is already under your fingers. Over the V, the altered scale sits beside the plain one: every tension bent flat, and the strongest pull home.

Graded on C major

The same cadence landing in minor: the ii is half-diminished and the V carries a flat ninth. Graded against the harmonic minor, because the raised seventh is the note the whole thing pulls on.

Graded on C harmonic minor

The cadence with the approach taken off. Shorter, so it comes round twice as often — the drill for landing on the third of the chord you are arriving at.

Graded on C major

The cycle — a chain of dominants each resolving a fourth up, the engine under Sweet Georgia Brown and half of the gypsy repertoire. Six bars of it and two to land in. This is the one form here that is genuinely NOT one scale: every dominant has its own colour, and the window over each is where they live.

Graded on C major

The same cycle with a diminished chord walked in between each pair — the move all over the Sheik of Araby and every chart like it. A diminished a semitone above the chord you are leaving is that chord's own dominant with a flat ninth, so the passing chord is not a detour; it is the pull, spelled out.

Graded on C major

The other way into the tonic: iv minor and its dominant, ♭VII7, instead of the ii and V. Softer and bluesier — the ♭VII7 shares its third and seventh with the chord you would have played, so it pulls home without the leading note. Landing rather than arriving.

Graded on C major

Three dominant chords a fourth apart, twelve bars, and the form half of everything else came out of. No major or minor scale covers all three chords, so this is graded against the blues scale — which is what gets played over it anyway.

Graded on C blues