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Fifth Progressions Up and Down: How Fifth Progressions Work
When you play these two chord progressions, the fifth down progression has a different harmonic character from the fifth up progression. Even though both progressions consist of exactly the same three chords. Even though the notes within each chord are identical.
The sequence of the chords matters. That’s what gives each type of progression its own distinctive character.
It’s worth repeating that the terms “fifth up” and “fifth down” do not imply pitch change. The terms “up” and “down” are simply unfortunate quirks of nomenclature.
- “Up” means counting forward in letter-sequence order to arrive at the name of the next chord in the sequence (which is named for its root).
- “Down” means counting backward in letter-sequence order to arrive at the name of the next chord (which is named for its root).