Lateral finger stretching exercise

I use this routine as a warm-up pretty often when I sit down at the piano (Alain Mallet first showed it to me during my time at Berklee.) Please perform it slowly...

→ view exercise (PDF)

As you can see, it consists of a four bar harmonic progression transposed a semitone up through the chromatic scale, which means it can be used rather effectively as an ear training exercise too (in other words, try looking at the first four bars and transposing them instead of reading the whole thing); enjoy the workout!

Five progressions from the tango "La Mariposa" by Pedro Maffia (lyrics by Celedonio Flores)

[In this post, I'm referring to the version with Edmundo Rivero on vocals, which can be found on the album Aníbal Troilo - RCA No.12 (1948-1949)]

9 and b9 resolve to 1, b13 resolves to 5. #5 can resolve to b5 in the context of a dominant chord (think of the whole tone scale.) These voice leading rules are all illustrated in a single background string line that runs from 1'32 to 1'39. Here are two progressions that stem from the latter, which I suggest one may practice in various keys:

1) Imin9 Imin V7(b13) V7 Imin9 Imin

2) III6 III V7(#5)/V V7(b5)/V V7(b9) V7

For your consideration, here are three additional progressions, directly transcribed or inspired from the song:

- Instead of having a I chord for a long time, here's a way of adding some motion:

3) I IImin7 #IIo7 I/3

(This progression happens to also be used in blues a lot!)

- Descending from I to V:

4) Imin Imin/b7 Io7/bb7 subV7/V V7

- Ascending from V to I:

5) V7 #Vo7 VImin7 V7/3 I

Enjoy and happy new year!