# THE LONGEST CHORD PROGRESSION IN MUSIC THEORY (the epic progression)
I was playing some chopin, as you do, when I came across a curious chord progression
with a distinctly epic sound [plays]. What struck me about it was how much it seemed
like the circle of fifths; I had a hunch that it passed through every key center without
repeating, even though only the circle of fifths and chromatic circle could do so by
a constant interval. As I dug deeper, I uncovered a circular progression that not only passes
through every major and minor chord without repeating, but touches on many topics in music
theory, including the circle of fifths, jazz chord extensions, and the super ultra hyper
mega meta lydian scale. I'm polychoron productions, and this is the epic progression, the longest
chord progression in music theory..
So, what *is* this progression? It's a chain of perfect cadences, each one separated by
a gap that alternates between a major and minor third. As such, it forms a pattern that
repeats every four chords. Let's break the full progression into these 4-chord chunks
and analyze one to see what gives it its smoothness and character, in terms of harmony and counterpoint.
Our starting chord is g major, which we'll consider to be the progression's tonal center
at the moment. The next chord is the F# 7th chord, which resolves to b minor, modulating
to a new tonal center. Already, there's something interesting going on: the F# 7 chord isn't
found in g major. It's chromatic, and yet, this jump doesn't seem unnatural at all. It
makes more sense when you think of b minor as the initial tonal center, instead of G
major. The g major chord becomes the 6 of b minor, F# 7 is 5-7, and b minor is one,
all chords diatonic to b minor. The progression they form, 6-5-1, is what gives this progression
its heroic sound.
In terms of counterpoint, the voice leading is very parsimonious, meaning that each voice
doesn't move far between chords. Between the first two, the bass moves down a semitone
from G to F#, the tenor moves up a whole tone from D to E, the alto up a augmented 2nd from
G to A sharp, and the soprano up a whole tone from B to C sharp. Chord 2, F sharp 7, then
resolves normally to a b minor chord. The transition between chords 3 and 4 is similar,
but even smoother: all four voices move by step.
Chord 4 resolves to D major, a major chord. Because our 4-chord chunk starts with *and*
resolves to a major chord, we can treat it as a fragment and form a sequence by chaining
a bunch of them together. You may remember that the interval between the beginning and
end of a fragment determines which tonal centers it will pass through. In our example, we started
with g major and ended with d major, creating a perfect fifth, one of the few intervals
that creates sequences that visit every note before repeating. So, incredibly, the epic
progression passes through every major and minor chord exactly once before repeating,
and these groups of major and minor chords form interlocking circles of fifths. We can
also observe another incredible fact: any three adjacent chords are diatonic, meaning
they can be found in the same key. This is why the progression sounds so smooth.
But hold on, there's way more interesting things about this sequence. Let's list each
tonal center that gets visited in order, starting with C major for simplicity. The next one
is e minor, then g major, then b, d, f#, and a. [] Sound familiar? This pattern of notes
is the standard extension of a major 7th chord, widely used in jazz. It appears here because
the distance between tonal centers alternates between major and minor thirds, which is how
chord extensions are often built. Indeed, if we begin our sequence on a minor chord,
we end up building the extension of a minor chord as well.
But still, it gets even more intriguing. Regular chord extensions end after the thirteenth
because they just loop back around to the root. But instead of hitting a C and repeating,
a is followed by c#, and the chord progression continues, ascending by alternating major
and minor thirds. Now where have you seen this pattern before? Unless you've been living
under a rock, you probably recognize the chord we're constructing as the C major 21 double
sharp 47 sharp 45 double sharp 43 sharp 41 etc etc chord, created by stacking a bunch
of major 7ths on top of each other. And indeed, the epic progression and this extended monstrosity
chord are equivalent; all of the properties between these two structures are shared. And
because this chord is associated with super ultra hyper mega meta lydian, we should be
able to find it somewhere in the epic sequence, right? And sure enough, in the top voice,
we find... the holy grail of impractical music theory, the super ultra hyper mega meta lydian
scale.
When I first pulled the loose thread of this chord progression, I expected to find a neat
harmonic pattern or some clever counterpoint, nothing else. Instead, I found a veritable
pascal's triangle of music theory: a chord progression that not only includes every major
and minor chord, but encodes modern chord extensions and has the frivolous super ultra
hyper mega meta lydian as a melody, despite its utility and presence in classical music.
Its extraordinary size, heroic sound, and inherent coolness truly embody every aspect
of the word epic.
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