The bV7#11 Chord

[Clausstrom]

Hello there!

I've been struggeling for years with this function!

We have it in Skylark (Ebmaj7 - Ab7#11 - Abmaj), Pannonica (Ebmaj7 - A7#11 - Ab7), Everything I love (Fmaj7 - B7#11 - Bbmaj7), A Beautiful Friendship ( Cmaj7 - Gb7#11 - Fmaj7) and also kind of in Just one of those things, but as an ø chord (Fmaj7 - Bø, Bbm6).

I notice that Monk doesn't have the function during soloing on Pannonica. I have transcribed a bit, but I only reach some kind of surface level that I'm not satisfied with.

Here's what I've tried:

- Just play the melody -ish
- Ignore it and just play the current idea
- Pause
- Lydian Dominant
- Whole tone scale
-7b5 arpeggio
-Voice leading (g,g#,a over Cmaj7, Gb#11, Fmaj seems to work)
-4 note collections (Ab triad/b6 over Gb7#11)

Most noteworthy (pun) the root of the chord seems really dissonant.

Would love to hear what people do over this commonly used function that I haven't heard much from in Jazz Pedagogy

[djg]

what do your favourite players do?




























hint: it's just I7 going to IV.

[Tal_175]

It's the secondary dominant of IV as djg said, I V/IV IV. It's just the tritone sub of that dominant. It acts as a passing chord to connect I and IV. It's no different than how you would treat (or not treat) any other type of secondary dominant. You can also just use I7 without alterations to go to IV.

[joe2758]

I am a huge fan of the half dim version. Alan Kingstone explained it to me this way:

It's a standard IV maj7 to min6, but the bass being up a half step adds bass motion

[Tal_175]

I am a huge fan of the half dim version. Alan Kingstone explained it to me this way:

It's a standard IV maj7 to min6, but the bass being up a half step adds bass motion

IV maj7 to iv min6 sounds like backdoor dominant to me. But the OP's chord is not that.

[joe2758]

i was talking about this one:

"and also kind of in Just one of those things, but as an ø chord (Fmaj7 - Bø, Bm6)."

but i jumped the gun and read it wrong

in that case it would have been F#half to Fmin6

[joe2758]

or the b or whatever

[Clausstrom]

IV maj7 to iv min6 sounds like backdoor dominant to me. But the OP's chord is not that.

My mistake, corrected! Bø - Bbm6

[joe2758]

oh in that case i was right on accident lol

[Clausstrom]

Just played it as a I7 and it sounded great! I already knew this but was reluctant because the parent mixolydian scale over a bV sub gives it so many weird intervals, but actually they sound super inside. Who would've thunk?

Thanks!

[AllanAllen]

That's funny, I asked almost the same question on Page 8 of this thread. Christian and Brent explained it as a passing tension chord, Brent adding that in my example it adds the sad nostalgic Christmas sound, but also showing Wes use it in proper jazz.

What Are You Practising Now?

[Christian Miller]

Just played it as a I7 and it sounded great! I already knew this but was reluctant because the parent mixolydian scale over a bV sub gives it so many weird intervals, but actually they sound super inside. Who would've thunk?

Thanks!

The function of a dominant chord is more important than its modality.

The modality is up for grabs - it's common in jazz to alter any given resolving dominant chord to intensify the voice leading.

[Mick-7]

The function of a dominant chord is more important than its modality.

There he goes again, killing another theory thread.

[Christian Miller]

Good. Theory threads deserve to die


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[AllanAllen]

Good. Theory threads deserve to die


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I thought you loved them, get to bust out all your 16th century anecdotes.

[rpjazzguitar]

Since google doesn't seem to know ... is the "modality" of a chord the alteration of it (like flatting or sharping 5ths and 9ths) without changing function?

[Christian Miller]

Since google doesn't seem to know ... is the "modality" of a chord the alteration of it (like flatting or sharping 5ths and 9ths) without changing function?

Yeah just whether it’s Lydian dominant or altered or diminished or whatever.

You can do what you like

Really it’s not about the scales at all. Often it’s based on interpolating a chromatic note between point A and B and then some theorist looks at it and goes ‘ooh G7b9 must come from a fancy scale.’

No it doesn’t it comes from voice leading.

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[Christian Miller]

I thought you loved them, get to bust out all your 16th century anecdotes.

Well I do try to bring them around to talking about actual music.

I don’t care about theory. I care about idiom. I try to help people play music in a style. I’m interested in style.

Historical idiom seems like theory because everyone’s dead, but it’s still idiom. This is as true of Lester Young as it is of JS Bach…. Possibly the terms and cultural reference points are unfamiliar so people think it’s theory. But most of the time you are just saying ‘I notice person x likes to do this thing a lot.’

Theory is like when someone asks ‘yes it sounds good but why?’ And then there’s a 20m YouTube video trying to explain it that means nothing.

I have nothing but affectionate contempt for music theory. It’s a disreputable profession. I know it well enough to know how dumb it is much of the time. The big secret is it’s easier than actually learning to play music. That’s why they teach it at college.

A thing sounds good because it’s in the style. In the idiom. Creative musicians play with and stretch the idiom, but you have to learn the tradition first. Whatever tradition that happens to be. And if you know that it doesn’t matter whether you can talk about it or not.

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[Tal_175]

Theory is like when someone asks ‘yes it sounds good but why?’

This doesn't do justice to the usage of the term "music theory" among musicians in my opinion. It is a subcategory of music theory but not all of it. Music theory includes terminology and concepts that are used to describe idioms. For example Christian my make a video about a certain player, and talk about the altered scale to describe part of that player's vocabulary. That might be a useful concept in that context given that player's influences, era they played in and musical education. It seems Christian wouldn't call this theory but Mark Levine wrote a book full of similar observations and called it the "Jazz Theory Book". I think Mark Levine's usage of the term is more compatible with the common parlance. I also haven't seen definitions of music theory in dictionaries and encyclopedias that limit it exclusively to Christian's definition.

[Woody Sound]

Yeah just whether it’s Lydian dominant or altered or diminished or whatever.

You can do what you like

Mine usually sound like demolished.

[Christian Miller]

This doesn't do justice to the usage of the term "music theory" among musicians in my opinion. It is a subcategory of music theory but not all of it. Music theory includes terminology and concepts that are used to describe idioms. For example Christian my make a video about a certain player, and talk about the altered scale to describe part of that player's vocabulary. That might be a useful concept in that context given that player's influences, era they played in and musical education. It seems Christian wouldn't call this theory but Mark Levine wrote a book full of similar observations and called it the "Jazz Theory Book". I think Mark Levine's usage of the term is more compatible with the common parlance. I also haven't seen definitions of music theory in dictionaries and encyclopedias that limit it exclusively to Christian's definition.

I think that's a problem with the common usage. I think if we are going to talk about anything with clarity it's important to not be too wide with our definitions.

Now, TBF Mark Levine's book IS to some extent a theory text. It analyses jazz lines in terms of scales and other pitch sets. There's a tacit assumption in the book that the reason why Joe Henderson lick X sounds good is because it uses notes from Y chord scale. The reasoning is that the chord scales that players use are what we should be paying attention to, and by extension we can use them to improvise jazz.

So whether or not you agree - this is a theoretical argument. I'm just using chord scales as an example. It could be anything - functional harmony, Schenkerian analysis, whatever.

This is different to Barry Harris's teaching (who taught both Joe and Mark) for instance, where he tells you how to construct bebop lines and there's never really a need to understand why things sound good. I regard this as craft or practice.

There's a profound difference between analysing music and looking for overarching theoretical connections and looking at music for specific cases. I'm much more interested in the second. It was understood for a long time that art is taught in the specifics. It still is, if you have a good teacher. Which is to say the specifics of the style, genre, idiom, tradition, whatever you call it. There is no Universal Music Theory, because what sounds good in one style or tradition doesn't always in another. And yet people often talk as if there is.

In theory you are always boiling things down. So for instance a simple example of scalar analysis that should be understood by most guitarists - you go and listen to BB King and you say, "here BB King is playing notes the major pentatonic scale". Which may be true, but tells you less about BB King than many might think. Real blues players understand implicitly that there's an aural tradition and idiom beyond noodling around in a pentatonic scale. You have to pay your dues.

Same for any music.

Take this thread.

• The OP is making a list of ideas of what to play based on their knowledge of theory.
• DJG's response is that we should go to the music. Which is about specifics/idiom.

So, obviously, scales don't make music anyway, you need more input. This is where many beginner-intermediate players hit a wall.

OTOH guitarists generally regard any unfamiliar term as 'theory'.

[Jim Soloway]

I like using a 6/9/#11 with the #11 in the voice. The lack of a 7th has a very open sound and the #11 in the voice has a Lenny Breau kind of slight dissonance. You can get a similar effect with a 6/9/maj7 with the maj7 in the voice.

[AllanAllen]

I like using a 6/9/#11 with the #11 in the voice. The lack of a 7th has a very open sound and the #11 in the voice has a Lenny Breau kind of slight dissonance. You can get a similar effect with a 6/9/maj7 with the maj7 in the voice.

Are you talking about chords or scales here?

Follow up, You got a grip for them that you can share with the class?

[rpjazzguitar]

x32232 is C E A D F#. C69#11.

Same notes are easily playable at the 7th fret. 87777x

[AllanAllen]

Thanks. That’s a much easier #11 grip than I was using.