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Exploring chromatic mediant progressions

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Let’s start with a look at a harmonised major scale. This is made by taking a major scale – C major in this case, seven notes played on the white notes of the keyboard from C to B – and stacking up alternate notes from the scale to get a series of diatonic three-note chords or triads. This gives us C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am and Bdim. 2

Just as the notes or ‘degrees’ of the scale have names that relate to their position in the order of the scale, the set of diatonic chords that we’ve built from those notes share these same names – the Tonic, Supertonic, Mediant, Subdominant, Dominant, Submediant and Subtonic, or Leading Tone. 3

The chords we’re interested in here are the mediant – the iii chord (which, in the case of C major, is E minor) – and the submediant – the vi chord (Am here); those whose roots are a 3rd interval away from the tonic C major chord root. The mediant’s root is a major 3rd above the tonic, while the submediant’s root is a minor 3rd below the tonic. 4

A chromatic mediant is a iii or vi chord that’s been altered in one of two ways. Firstly, it may have been made major when it should be minor. For instance, in the key of C major, we can take the iii

G#. G# chord of E minor (E, G, B) and make it E major by raising the third, G, to is not in the scale of C major, so that makes it chromatic. 5

Since we’ve successfully identified the mediants as being chords iii and vi of a diatonic set, we could also do a similar thing with the minor vi chord of the key of C major, A minor (A, C, E), which we can

C#, make chromatic by raising the third, C, to a making an A major chromatic mediant chord. 6

The second way we might transform a diatonic mediant into a chromatic mediant is by flattening the whole chord by one semitone – so an E minor (E, G, B) Ebm Eb, Gb, Bb), might become an chord ( or A Ab minor (A, C, E) might become an chord Ab, Eb).

( B, That gives us four chromatic mediants so far.

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Chromatic mediants can be either major or minor, so that means we

Eb Eb, Bb) Ab could also add major ( G, and

Ab, Eb) major ( C, to our list, making a total of six possible chromatic mediant chords in any key. This table shows all the possible chromatic mediants for the key of C major.

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So how do we use chromatic mediants in a production setting? The simplest method would be to just insert one into an otherwise diatonic progression to give things a bit of a lift. Choosing the flattened

Ab Eb major chromatic mediants – or major in the key of C – gives us an ethereal

Ab sound. You could maybe have: C > >F> C, as shown here.

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This works well because of the Ab major chord’s proximity to the other chords in the progression. If we compare

Ab the chord to the diatonic chords, we see that it contains the tonic C (shared with C

Ab, and F) and also only one semitone away from the A natural in the F triad. We’re also close to the dominant G chord, though there are no shared notes.

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Chromatic mediants make great passing chords for a bit of a gospel sound. Here I’ve got Cmaj7/9 (C, E, G, B, D, E, G) > Fmaj7/9 (F, A, C, E, G, A, C) playing in

E7# the first two bars. When the phrase repeats, I’ve inserted an 9 (E, Ab, D, E,

Ab,

G, D) as a passing chord on the last beat of the bar before the change to the Fmaj7/9 chord.

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This neo-soul progression uses two pairs of extended chords with a chromatic mediant movement between

Ebmaj13 each pair: C6/9 (C, G, E, G, A, D) >

Eb, Bb, Bbmaj7/ Bb,

( G, D, G, C, D, F) > 9( F, A, D,

Dbmaj13 Db, Ab, Bb, Eb).

F, A, C) > ( F, C, F, C, The chord shape isn’t important, it’s the root notes that determine the chromatic mediant relationship.

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In our last example, we’ve got a two

F#) chord Gmaj7/9 > A > Bm7 > A movement going on. Bm (B, D, is the diatonic iii chord – the mediant – of the key of G major, so to get a chromatic mediant movement second time around, I’ve transformed the Bm7 chord into a

D#. dominant B7 chord by raising the D up to a