Backdoor Progression - How it works

I hope this gives you some fun insights into music theory and how you can apply it to improve your songwriting and playing.

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[Kazberhaf]

Thank you so much Matthias, I now have copious notes 😅👍🏻your explanations are very very clear, and very helpful brilliant!

[keithcitizen]

About the simplest easier explanation I've seen .So much to learn in music theory.

[lionsskyblue]

very good my friend, i have been watching your videos since years ago and you have helped me alot, thank you and god bless you

[craigmitchell]

viciously underrated content. Cheers for the videos (:

[attifan]

thank you! brilliant work! time saved!

[JohnyMad]

Awesome videos man. You got yourself a new subscriber

[explorations]

Great that you explained this in so many different perspectives. best video i've seen on youtube on backdoor. However, I don't understand how your example 6 and 7 relate to Bb7?

[beat]

9:40
Bm E7 is not a ii - V in A minor, a ii - V in A minor is Bm7b5 E7 right?

[juditta]

as for the replacement of tritone E7 and Bb7 it works but Fm7 is not replacement of Tritone of Bm7. To have a tritone substitution and maintain the harmonic function of the chords it is necessary that the third and seventh be kept even if inverted, in this case this does not happen.

[CarlosMartinez-grrp]

Is the backdoor progression related to the deceptive cadence? Because Bb7 to Cm would be such a move, right?

[muuroonggeooffrey]

Brilliant, Its just a rootless& fifthless Dominant with b9&#9

[SamiGundogdu]

Excellent, which scales should be play on these chords? Dorian on minor and lydian b7 on bVII7 ?

[Ambidextroid]

I don't like the voice leading explanation. Many chords share more notes with the dominant chord and have better voice leading than the backdoor 5, yet the backdoor progression has a particularly smooth effect. I think the chord borrowing from the parallel minor is the correct explanation. A 2-5-6 progression in Eb major sounds resolved because the 6 chord has tonic function, just replace that 6 minor chord with a major chord (a classic picardy third) and the resolution is even stronger.

[henrikhankhagnell]

awesome! thanks! let's now play jazz piano!

[الشمسالحمراء-عظ]

¿how i do this when my I Chord it's minor? For example, if i have a II ∅ to V7 (9b or 5#) to Im7 Should I keep the second semi-diminished and change the fifth by the bVII? Anyone can please explain me this, thanks so much.

[carlosmariosuarez]

i loved this video but the fact is this progression works even if the chords are imcomplete, eg without 7ths and 5ths, even without thirds, and that's what needs an explanation

[andreasrehn]

I just think of it as a false cadence of Eb going to Cmaj instead if Cmin...

[JonFrumTheFirst]

There are some reasonable points made here within the 8 explanations, but he never gets is right. Historically, a common progressions was I-I7-IV-IVmin-I. It's in the third four bars of When the Saints Go Marching In - one chord per bar. The IV-IVmin-I progression works because of the A-Ab-G movement (in C major). You can actually pull it back and create a line of C-Bb-A-Ab-G. So F-Fmin-C is just a way to get from F to C - try it and you'll hear the pull. Now, Bb7 is just Fmin6 with a Bb in the bass - it's a direct substitution. That is where the bVII7 comes from - not from any replacement of the ii7-V7 progression, and not from the relative minor. How many people actually hear chords as being taken from the relative minor? Only musicians with excellent ears, and music students who have taken theory classes. All the relative minor stuff is classroom theory that has no bearing on why the progression works. Finally, once songwriters started breaking away from that original cliche progression, someone tried the Bb7, and it sounded nice. And once you use ANY dominant seventh chord, it's trivial to add the relative ii minor 7 chord and make a ii7-V7 progression. And the reason it fits right in is that it (Fm7) also has the Ab leading tone.
There's no doubt that this is how the so-called backdoor progression was created - you can see the original chords in many, many songs. After songwriters started substituting the bVII7 for the IVmin, then they began plugging the same chord in without the IV-in front of it, and then they added the IVm7 to make the new ii7-V7 leading to the tonic. All the altered chord stuff, the relative minor and the analogies to the diatonic ii7-V7 is just constructing an explanation out of classroom knowledge without a historical basis.

[donlessnau]

Great music theory info. But why is it so hard to find any real, concrete background info on you. Where were you born, go to school, etc? The music theory is fantastic but all the other stuff sounds like bs.