chord progression mini goals?

[GuitarBoss1]

As I've come to understand it, all progressions - even complex ones - need a harmonic goal. There needs to be a sense that the progression is heading in some direction. Longer, complex progressions solve this by providing several “mini goals” as the progression advances.

What are some good ways to shorten up the chord progression, and/or provide harmonic goals throughout the progression?

[mr. beaumont]

ii...V...I. ii...V...i.

[stanron]

Originally Posted by GuitarBoss1

As I've come to understand it, all progressions - even complex ones - need a harmonic goal. There needs to be a sense that the progression is heading in some direction. Longer, complex progressions solve this by providing several “mini goals” as the progression advances.

What are some good ways to shorten up the chord progression, and/or provide harmonic goals throughout the progression?

Perhaps what you are after here is what are called 'cadences'. A cadence is a musical ending that involves a chord change. There are several different cadences which have different names and produce different kinds of endings. Read this;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_%28music%29

The authentic or perfect cadence uses the change from chord V to chord I. It sounds like an ending. A half cadence is any change that ends on chord V. This sounds a more temporary ending than the authentic cadence.

In a simple folk tune you might get 8 bars of music which come to rest on chord V. (the half cadence) Then the 8 bars is repeated but this time coming to rest on chord I. (The authentic cadence)

Read the web page and see if that gives you any more ideas.

[Bern]

I don't know if 'goal' is a good way to put it. It's more of a diatonic relationship or chordal harmony in most cases. In Jazz it can become more complex, though, in that chord substitutions, for example, can disguise the key center. It takes some studying to recognize what's going on and to simplify chord changes. It's one of those things you really have to discover yourself, unless, you have a good instructor who can explain it to you.
BTW, I'm not sure if that is what you are asking.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by GuitarBoss1

As I've come to understand it, all progressions - even complex ones - need a harmonic goal. There needs to be a sense that the progression is heading in some direction. Longer, complex progressions solve this by providing several “mini goals” as the progression advances.

What are some good ways to shorten up the chord progression, and/or provide harmonic goals throughout the progression?

I agree with the above. "Cadence" is probably the term you're after.
The wiki page is good on the various classical definitions of the different kinds of cadence.

In jazz (to a lesser extent in pop and rock), you'll find what are called "secondary dominants". These provide the kind of "mini goals" you might be thinking of, in that they temporarily "tonicise" other chords in the key (apart from the tonic).
In the key of C major, the dominant (V) is G or G7, which leads in a "authentic cadence" to C (V-I). Classically this happens at the end of a tune, or at various points in the middle where a firm sense of "closure" is required.
But other chords in the key can have their own dominants, which drive the progression more strongly towards those chords. So, in C major you can have:
A or A7 = V of Dm
E or E7 = V of Am
B or B7 = V of Em
D or D7 = V of G
C7 = V of F (a plain C is just the tonic of course)

You can hear "V/V" (D in key of C going to G) in a lot of classic country songs, especially in the bridge. The Stones borrowed this "country" sound in Honky Tonk Women, when they used an A major chord to go to D (in key of G), on the line "upstairs for a ride". (It really sounds like the progression is being "kicked upstairs" at that point .)

The old jazz standard "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" has a good selection of secondary dominants:

|C - E7 - |A7 - - - |Dm - A7 - |Dm - - - |
|F - F#dim7 - |C - A7 - |D7 - - - |G7 - - - |

E7 = V of Am
A7 = V of Dm
D7 = V of G

There's also that F#dim7 (sometimes played as D7) which is harder to analyse - can be viewed a couple of ways - but is easy to see as a chromatic transition to C (the F chord root going up via F# to G on the C chord).

In a sense, that's the same kind of thing the secondary dominants do - provide chromatic leading tones - and is a good general tip on how to embellish chord progressions with more interesting moves: take any pair of chords in a sequence, and see if there's any notes you can insert between them to make half-step moves.
Sometimes these chromatic transition notes can stack up into whole new chords.
Eg, if we have C to Am, we can insert an Em in between, which gives us a descending bass line C-B-A (the other two notes in Em, E and G are shared with the C chord). But when we turn Em into E major, we get an additional chromatic line, G-G#-A.
-0---0---0--------
-1---0---1--------
-0->-1->-2-------
-2---2---2-------
-3->-2->-0--------
---------------
IOW, in looking for interesting moves from C to Am, we end up with an E major chord in between. But its those two "voice leading" moves that are the whole point. (Of course we also get a B going up to C as E moves to Am.)
Transition chords don't always have to be recognisable triads like this, although they often are.
And btw, E is not "better" than Em, or the other diatonic option G/B; and a plain C-Am might sound just fine anyway. It's a question of providing other choices that might sound good at particular times.

Just "follow the voices" - which you can do quite easily on guitar if you treat each string as a "voice", and look at how each string moves from chord to chord. Can you get another note in the gap? How does it sound? (That's always the decider of course - sometimes it sounds bad, sometimes you don't need another note.)
It may not matter if the process doesn't produce a chord you recognise. It just has to sound good as a move, injecting energy or interest into the sequence (and hopefully not clashing with the MELODY ).

[GuitarBoss1]

Wow, great responses guys Thanks a ton!