How do you play a Mark Levine Alt chord?

[Ron Stern]

on p. 71 of "The Jazz Theory Book" he says: ""The complete chord symbol,reflecting all of these alterations, would be B7b9#9#11b13 . . . This chord is called 'altered' because, as a B7 chord, it has been altered in every possible way."

OK, two 9ths, one 11 and one 13 makes four notes.

Root, 3d and 7th makes three notes.

Four plus three is seven.

My guitar has six strings.

Assuming there's a way to play seven notes at once, that's a chord made out of an entire scale. Seems like it would sound kind of thick, if that's the word.

[Jake Hanlon]

Guitarists have to make choices when playing Altered chords. Typically you have to choose 1 9th and either the #11 or b13.

Once you select one altered extension then the other is considered to be fair game. Ditch the root on your chord and you should be able to survive just fine. You can alternate between 9's in a melodic turn to your comping as well. Typically depending on what's going on you don't need more then 4 notes in your voicings and 5 is something you don't want to be relying on as the guitar will start to get muddy or too dense sounding depending on instrumentation.

So

drop the root for your 9th, pick a # or b

your 5th is your 11th or 13th depending on what you want.

keep the tri-tone (3rd and 7th) and you'll find plenty of great sounding voicings for your B7alt

[Reg]

Real old school played from Harmonic Min., and many of the old tunes use b9 and b13... the 11 is natural. Then we started to add #9 to same pitch collection,( 5th degree of Har. Min.). Then in 60's 7th degree of Mel. Min. or the pitch collection and what is typically referred to as Altered, became standard, same as Mark is spelling. In the last 20 years the term is used to almost mean any collection of pitches that are not natural... Dom chords from Harmonic Maj., 3rd of 5th degrees... MM 5th degree, Double Har.Maj. 5th degree, Diminished Half/whole and on and on... But most educators who understand jazz refer to altered as the 7th degree of MM, with spellings as you choose... 1, b9 and #9, 3, #11 or b5, #5 or b13 and b7. Typically your spelling should represent where your pulling from, harmonically... but that is becoming extremely loose also... If you simply spelled the chord in traditional 3rds, you would have a Min7th chord with 1, b9, b3, b11, b5, b13, b7... a root with all flatted chord tones and tensions... But like I said we now spell as a Dom7th chord with altered tensions. There use to be a rule of thumb to use only one of the 9ths... like I said use to be. If you check out the playing standards in a jazz style, I posted many versions of voicing an explain how and why i use voicings... Reg

[kamlapati]

I took a class from Mark in the 90's and my recollection was that he didn't really expect you to use ALL those notes, but to offer you the option of those notes. That certainly makes sense not just for guitarists but for any small combo.

I read his alt chord name as
either #5 or b5, not both
either #9 or b9, not both

[bako]

One possibility if you want it all:

D#--A---D---G---C---F
11--12--12--12--13-13

Another easy way to access altered notes for B7 is the F Major Pentatonic.

F----G----A---C----D
b5-b13--b7--b9---#9

All the altered notes plus a b7. Add D# and stir......

[Ron Stern]

Thanks to all for the responses. Looks like another case of Mark Levine not saying what he meant, which was something fairly simple, but saying something else, which is arguably wrong and probably useless, and definitely confusing.

[Ron Stern]

Thanks, Bako. Levine and Vic Juris both have applications of pentatonic scales which go into "alt" territory. I'm working on both simultaneously in the hope that one will illuminate the other.

[Ron Stern]

Originally Posted by Jake Hanlon

Guitarists have to make choices when playing Altered chords.

What notes does a pianist play when the score says "alt" ?

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Originally Posted by Ron Stern

What notes does a pianist play when the score says "alt" ?

I don't know, I'm a total hack on piano, but I love when I can play two adjacent white keys with one finger -- I assume that's really poor piano technique.

[GuitaRoland]

Without digging too deep into this post I would mention - leave the 5 out if it's not sharp or flat. The 5 would my first leave out note because of it's nonfunction in most jazz chords.

That's my choice - what is yours?

And don't even think as a piano-player who could play ten notes at a time. Just keep the notes that are important for the chord and you're done.

/R

[hed_b94]

Of course on the guitar, note choice is very important.
The root and the 7th are the ones I think you need the least ( you can also take out the 3rd but then playing #9 will sound weird)

One solution that I can suggest is- play two chords instead of one.
We guitarist have a limit, but who said you have to play the notes all-together in order to imply the wanted harmony? you can easily break it down to 2 four-notes chords.

[GuitaRoland]

Originally Posted by hed_b94

Of course on the guitar, note choice is very important.
The root and the 7th are the ones I think you need the least ( you can also take out the 3rd but then playing #9 will sound weird).

The 3rd will tell if it's major or minor, the root I could live without but the 7th has a function that is important - keep it!

/R