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The ii-V-I

The three-chord movement that most of the jazz repertoire is assembled from.

If you learn one thing about jazz harmony, learn this one.

Take the second, fifth and first degrees of a major scale and build sevenths on them. In C that gives Dm7, G7, Cmaj7. Played in that order it is the strongest sense of arrival in tonal music: a minor chord, then a dominant that creates tension, then the resolution.

That movement is everywhere. Standards are largely ii-V-I progressions in one key, followed by ii-V-I progressions in another key, stitched together. Learn to spot it and a sixteen-bar page of chord symbols collapses into four or five recognisable moves.

The practical version of spotting it: when you see a minor seventh followed by a dominant seventh a fourth above it, that is a ii-V, and whatever follows is very likely the I.

ii-V-I Practice Loop

Loop a ii-V-I and play it until the movement is in your ear rather than on the page. Change the key once it feels automatic.

Key
C
Tempo
BPM
Bar 1Dm7
Bar 2Dm7
Bar 3G7
Bar 4Cmaj7
What’s a ii-V-I?The ii-V-I is the cadence underneath most jazz standards: a minor 7th chord built on the key’s 2nd degree moves to a dominant 7th on the 5th degree, which resolves down to the major 7th tonic — motion by descending fifths that the ear hears as strongly “going somewhere.” Drilling it on a loop in every key, rather than only inside a tune, builds the fluency to recognize and play over it the moment it shows up — which, in jazz, is often.

Now find it in the wild. This bossa sits in C major, and its changes open on Dm7 and G7 — the ii-V of the key you have just been practising — before landing on C.

Play the three voicings you learned in lesson one, following the chord changes on screen. Where the chart shows a chord you have not learned yet, play nothing and keep counting; missing chords is normal at this stage and stopping is not.

Listen specifically for the moment the G7 resolves. That feeling of the floor arriving under you is the whole point.

Soft Summer Bossa – Smooth Jazz Backing Track in C Major (108 bpm)
DixMusicStudio#jazz#Cmajor108 BPM

Soft Summer Bossa in C major, 108 BPM. Watch for Dm7 to G7 and what follows it.