Music: Practice & Theory Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for musicians, students, and enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I've written a song with a chord progression in E major (I think) using borrowed chords from the parallel minor key.
The progression is: C#m7, A, D#M7, F#, E, G#.
I translate this Roman numerically: ivm7, IV, VIIM7, II, I, III
Can anyone suggest a "name" for this progression and possible modes or scales would work with this song. Also is E major a "correct" tonic chord for this musical passage?
It's not an "officially named" progression (like "rhythm changes" or "backdoor cadence"). Without being unduly flip, I say just name it after yourself. It's now The Howe Progression.
One way to go about this is to look at the set of notes comprising the entire collection of chords, and see if they make a useful scale. Failing that, look at subsets of the progression to find scales that work. For more on this, see Finding a Scale from Power Chords.
In this case the chord progression uses every pitch except F, so breaking things up will better suit the purpose. Note that each pair of chords has common tones: C#m7 and A share C# and E; D#M7 and F# share A#; E and G# share G#. Another observation is that D#M7 shares no pitches with the preceding two chords, and E shares no common tones with either of its two preceding chords. This naturally divides the chords into pairs, and also suggests key changes.
C# D D# - F F# G - G# A A#. (The hyphens indicate the groupings I hear within the scale.)C# Dorian: C# D# E F# G# A# B C# C# mel. min. mode 7: B# C# D# E F# G# A# B#
IMO, no. I would put the progression in C# minor. This is because of the very strong pull of the final two chords. III-V-i is a reasonably "ordinary" progression, and the V-i relationship is especially strong. The reason III-V works so well is the combination of the common-tone (the G# in this case) plus the chromatic "leading-tone" movement: in this case from B to B#, with the B# leading to a presumed C#.
I'd translate into RN differently.
The G♯ at the end of the sequence feels more like V, making the piece in key C♯m, thus that's i. Making the sequence i VI II IV III V.
As far as scale notes are concerned, obviously C♯ minor will work, as will E Ionian, but care will be needed with II, as those notes will be slightly in variance.
