D7: Fill & Download for Free

My fellow NYU adjunct Rebecca Feynberg recently hipped me to Vasily Kalinnikov.If you listen at 6:16, there’s a particularly lovely and tragic chord progression. It’s in the key of E♭, but I transposed it into C for ease of understanding:||: Am | D7 | Fm | C :||I mentally refer to this progression as the Willie Nelson turnaround, because he uses it extensively in his classic tune “I’d Have To Be Crazy.” I had the pleasure of performing this many times back in my country music days, and it makes a great lullaby for my son.Willie’s version uses a different harmonic rhythm, and starts on the I chord instead of vi, but the emotional effect is the same. The tune is in E, but again, I transposed into C for easier comparison.|| C | % | % | % | D7 | Fm | C | % ||At the top of the tune and in various other spots, Willie also uses this variant:|| C | % | G7 | % | D7 | Fm | C | % ||The descending feeling you get from D7 to Fm to C is related to the “Beatles cadence,” technically a combination major/minor plagal cadence. You can hear it at around 1:00 in “If I Fell,” in the bridge.This tune is in D, but I’m putting it into C for discussion purposes. In the line “but I couldn’t stand the pain,” the word “pain” lands on F, the major IV chord. In the next line, “and I would be sad,” the word “I” lands on the Fm, the minor iv chord. Here’s the entire bridge:|| C7 | % | F | Fm | % | C | G7 ||The Beatles cadence is effective, but it’s tamer and less chromatic than the Kalinnikov/Willie Nelson chords. Why is the Kalinnikov/Willie Nelson turnaround so sad? And why is it so much more hip than the Beatles cadence? I think it’s because of the way it defies your expectations.Here’s how D7 is supposed to work in the key of C: it temporarily puts you in the key of G. The most conventional (boring) chord to follow D7 is G7, followed by C. The scale implied by D7 is D mixolydian. This is just an alternative spelling for C lydian, the brightest of all the diatonic modes. The conventional move of cycling from D7 to G7 to C transforms C lydian back to plain-vanilla C major. All is sweetness and light.This is not what happens in the Kalinnikov/Willie Nelson progression. Instead of trotting obediently around the circle of fifths like you expect, the D7 unexpectedly resolves to Fm instead. This surprising chord implies F dorian, alternatively known as C natural minor. Instead of moving from the brightest scale to the second brightest, you've just moved to a decidedly dark place. Even the voice leading is depressing: the F♯ and A in the D7 chord slump dejectedly down to F and A♭ in the Fm chord. (The Beatles cadence is weaker because it doesn’t have the lift up to F♯ before its descent into minor land.) Sadness is that much sadder if you’re expecting happiness.This post originally appeared on my blog.

This answer assumes you know how to form Barre chords in the first place.Here is a great exercise to help build strength and stamina:Play full Barre version of G7, sixth string root, C7 and D7, fifth string root in the following progressions:Prog #1:G7 / / / | 4x; C7 / / / | 2x; G7 / / / | 2x; D7 / / / | 2x; G7 / / / | 2xPlay this progression as a 4 stroke (one down stroke per beat) rhythm with a metronome set to about 80. Yes it’s kind of slow, for a reason. Relax your grip between beats 2 & 3 and 4 & 1. Play the progression 3 times without stopping.At first, you won’t make it. That’s okay. DO NOT PUSH yourself to do it in the beginning. Play until your fingers and muscles say “enough”. Rest, go on to play something else and then come back in ten to fifteen minutes. This will take time. You are building finger/muscle strength, which cannot happen over night. Be patient with yourself. You’ll get there.Once you have this down pretty well. Play the next progression:Prog #2:G7 / / / | 4x; C7 / / / | 2x; G7 / / / | 2x; D7 / / / | 1x; C7 / / / | 1x; G7 / / / | 1x; D7 / / / | 1xUse the same relaxation between beats 2 & 3 and 4 & 1 technique and metronome.A variation on Prog #2…Prog #3:G7 / / / | 1x; C7 / / / | 1x; G7 / / / | 2x; C7 / / / | 2x; G7 / / / | 2x;D7 / / / | 1x; C7 / / / | 1x; G7 / / / | 1x; D7 / / / | 1xYes, these are 12 bar blues progressions.Do not cheat. Ever.This exercise is a kind of isometric exercise and will build strength and stamina. Again, it will take time to be able to play through each progression 3 times in a row without stopping.The reason for the 7th chords? Well, you know that b7 tone your first finger is covering? Yeah the one that doesn’t sound most of the time. Well, here is how you will know your strength is getting better: You will begin to hear that b7 tone on all three chords more often. It will be sustained longer into the progression as you build strength until you can hear it all the way through the three passes of the progression to the end of the 3rd cycle.So, not only is this one of the best strength and stamina exercises ever, you also have a built in indicator of how well you are progressing in that pesky b7 tone. How cool is that?(IF you are interested in lessons, I teach via Skype; reasonable rates. PM me for details.)

Checkmates are actually quite rare in high-level play. Players can see enough to know they are going to be mated, and generally resign before the mate is carried out.There’s a lot of beauty in a lot of games out there, don’t limit yourself to actual checkmates. Winning ideas can be just as thrilling as an actual mate.For instance, this:This is from a famous game- Short v. Timman, from 1991. This looks like a pretty blocked up position, equal material, but white is clearly better here (the engine evaluates it as +5). Black cannot infiltrate into white’s territory, but white, while having a queen on f6, has no obvious mating threat. The knight on f3 can’t move because of black’s mating threat on g2. White can’t swing his rook to the f file because the rook on d7 hangs. If white moves off of d7, black plays Re7 and defends f2. So black just chills, right? White can’t make progress here.Short had an amazing idea- since black can’t go anywhere, if white can put his king on h6, white can mate on g7. So he played Kh2. Then Kg3. Then Kf4. Then Kg5. Then black resigned.