Chord Progressions using ii and iii – Hands-Free Ear Training 29

Popular music uses a fairly limited vocabulary of chords, and this exercise will help you start to identify these chords by ear. Let me state again that this is not the best place to jump in for this series of exercises. I’d suggest at least to go back to exercise 26 or 25 if you are interested in learning chord progressions by ear.

All of the chord progressions in this lesson will contain a ii or a iii chord somewhere. If you were to rank the minor chords in a major key by the frequency at which they are commonly used in popular music, vi would be the most used, ii would be the next most used, and iii would be the least used. The vi chord contains two of the same notes of the tonic triad, including the tonic, which makes it a strong stand-in for the I chord.

Although iii shares two of the same notes as the tonic triad (E and G in the key of C), none of those notes actually are the tonic. This results in a somewhat non-commital-sounding chord, which is why it’s one of the least used. iii can lead smoothly into the vi chord or sometimes can be found as a passing chord which moves to IV. One of the most commonly seen uses of the iii chord is the “Royal Road” or “Japanese Pop” Progression, which goes IV-V-iii-vi. Ultimately, most modern musicians aren’t actively thinking about the “rules” of where chords can easily go, so remember that every chord can go to every other chord if the composer feels like it.

ii is most often found as a “pre-dominant chord” which moves to V. It shares a similar function as IV, but has a bit more color because of the minor quality. One popular chord progression that uses ii would be I-V-ii-IV. This is similar to the most widely-used progression in pop, the I-V-vi-IV progression, although it substitutes the vi for a ii.
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