Who invented the I - VI ?

[16251]

When opportunity knocks

[AROIOS]

Pythagoras

[CyberGene]

It's actually i - VI (in a minor key) that is most popular. Not sure I've heard I - VI (in a major key) often.

 

And I'm not sure who discovered it but it's become such a cliche in most modern electronic music it makes me sick sometimes.

[El Lobo]

I - VI7 - II7 - V7

[CyberGene]

13 minutes ago, El Lobo said:

I - VI7 - II7 - V7

That’s the bridge of Rhythm Changes. But outside jazz not very popular IMO. 

[Mark Schmieder]

Definitely the person who was ticked off about the II-V-I. Call it the Revenge Chord Sequence? But where does it end?

[ElmerJFudd]

The real question….

 

 

who was that man? 

 

[Docbop]

I remember playing an Oldies gig and and the guy running it would called out Ice Cream Changes in A.   First time I heard it that called that and we played a lots Ice Changes  that night. 

[El Lobo]

Are Ice Cream changes I-vi-IV-V? (sometimes I-vi-ii-V). Every Sam Cooke pop ballad (and so many others). 

[Docbop]

1 hour ago, El Lobo said:

Are Ice Cream changes I-vi-IV-V? (sometimes I-vi-ii-V). Every Sam Cooke pop ballad (and so many others). 

That's it. 

[confidence]

The progression I - VI originally arose out of the recognition that triads a third apart have two out of their three notes in common, so are almost the same chord and can usually harmonise the same melody notes. VI was thus an intermediate chord between I and another primary function chord, usually IV. As such it was "invented" as part of the whole codification of functional harmony in the early baroque period. I - IV - V, if you wanted to draw I out for a bit longer without it become boring, would become I - VI - IV - V. This is an extremely common progression in baroque and classical music and also what later became known as the "50s progression" due to its ubiquitous appearence in 1950s pop ballads and doo-wop - eg the tune-over-repeated-chord-progression that every pair of children plays when walking into a room with a piano, but which I shan't name due to its unique capacity to turn me into a homicidal psychopath.

 

VI could also appear as a substitute for I, for example in the well known interrupted cadence, where a phrase expected to end V - I instead ends V - VI.

 

What's interesting and instructive about common practice harmony, however, is that I - VI only ever appears in that order - the progression VI - I NEVER happens. This is because of the importance of the root note in defining the progression to a new chord. I and VI may have two notes in common, but the new note you hear on VI is the root, and that makes the progression clear to the ear. By contrast, if VI progressed to I the root of the new chord is already present in the old chord. It's then unclear whether it's actually a progression or just an inversion of the same chord, maybe with a 7th added. Baroque and classical composers didn't like this kind of uncertainty and blurring of the sense of harmonic impetus.

 

Romantic composers less so, but the one who really turned this on its head was Debussy, who used progressions by rising 3rd all over the place, as that uncertainty and floating feeling was exactly what he was looking for. Trance music using I - VI over and over again is obviously not working functionally, but just oscillating between I and "not I" as a very basic kind of contrast, probably partly inspired by the minor quality of VI which gives it a little sense of darkness or gravitas.