Turnarounds: How to turn 1 Chord into 4

[Jonah]

I guess it has to do with the avoid notes. In all three scales the 6 is an avoid note.

Why would you avoid it? In melodic minor on the contrary it is there to be played... otherwise why would they raise it...


I believe historically...

It was modal thing fist... aeolian... and they raised the VII a bit in modal cadences ... to make it resolve better..

This was the basis for harmonic minor...

After that melodic jump between VI and VII became extremly wide and dissonant (considering those days notions)... so eventually they raised it too to keep it in balance ... that would become melodic minor later

Also we should remember it was a different temperance and these raised degrees did not sound so strong as they sound now...

[Jonah]

I thought I'd explained it. Although the m6 chord is prevalent in music, if you harmonise all the scales - major and 3 minors - none of the chords generated are called a m6. It's conspicuous by its absence. Yet the m6 chord is found everywhere...

I know the notes of a m6 also comprise a m7b5 or a rootless dom9 but I don't think that really explains it. Who invented it?

some ideas to explain it..

For root it's bb7... I believe m7th chord is not so good as I chord in minor

For II in major key it's anticipation of the V...polychord

The same logics is about maj6th chord - they just lowered maj7th... dom7th did not work for root so they loewered it more - and it made bb7th

[matt.guitarteacher]

I thought I'd explained it. Although the m6 chord is prevalent in music, and is called a m6 chord, if you harmonise all the scales - major and 3 minors - none of the chords generated are called a m6. It's conspicuous by its absence. Yet the m6 chord is found everywhere...

I know the notes of a m6 also comprise a m7b5 or a rootless dom9 but I don't think that really explains it. Who invented it?

Chords are routinely spelled as 7th chords in real books, but I would assume that's largely arbitrary. There are other charts where things are scored as 9ths or 13this, but it should be understood that the symbol itself is not so much a limitation add it is an attempt to NOT actually limit choices.

Of course it goes without saying that you're usually not going to get a 6th if you spell things as seventh chords. ( I swear if someone posts some kind of diminished nonsense in response to that.... , oy! :-) )

I'd imagine that it's mostly arbitrary convention. If anything, I would think that sevenths are at least better for disambiguation purposes. It's pretty helpful to know if it's natural vs flat seven.

[ragman1]

My guess is that it has something to do with the fact that 6th chords can be thought of as inversions of 7 chords starting on the 6th scale degree. Example - Gm6=Em7b5 etc. As grahambop says, if you use the convention of naming chords using the root as the basis, you can't come up with a name because you are skipping every other note in constructing the chord.

Understood, but whence the m6 idea? In Stardust it goes F6 - Fm6. Why not write it F6 - Dm7b5/F? I think because it's not a Dm7b5, it's an Fm with an added natural/major 6 note. And whether it's actually derived from any scale is debatable.

[ragman1]

you're usually not going to get a 6th if you spell things as seventh chords.

Now that makes some sense... You don't get any major 6 chords either if you harmonise with 7ths.

[matt.guitarteacher]

Understood, but whence the m6 idea? In Stardust it goes F6 - Fm6. Why not write it F6 - Dm7b5/F? I think because it's not a Dm7b5, it's an Fm with an added natural/major 6 note. And whether it's actually derived from any scale is debatable.

When you look at function, where it comes from and where it's going, some are more obvious than others. coming from F seems to make it more obvious. There's sometimesa good bit of gray and semantics in other examples....

Anyway, with something like
C Maj 7 - C6 - Dm7 - Dm6,
C6 kind of "functions" in context of a 1625. Little bit of potato-Patato there. But with Dm7 - G7 - C6...C6 is more obviously just a 6th chord.

[matt.guitarteacher]

It's worth noting that the melody there is an E.

Yeah, major IV to minor IV is an ancient thing as well.

[ragman1]

.

Yes, I'd go with that.

Also you mentioned popular convention. I'd go with that too - if the m6 hadn't already been invented we'd have to invent it ourselves :-)

But, apart from useful shortcuts as it were, I think there are possibly two answers to it. One, as you say, is ease of description depending on function.

The other is simply seeing the 6 as an extension, a colour note, added to a chord standardly derived from harmonisation: F add D is F6, Fm add D is Fm6, Fm7 add D is Fm13, Fm9 add D is Fm69.

(edit)

Otherwise we'd have to call an Fm6 an Fm/maj6, etc.

[ragman1]

It's worth noting that the melody there is an E.

Ah, very good point (that's why I was playing F mel over it).

I suppose that would make the chord an Fm/maj7 add 6.

gawd almighty!

[ragman1]

Thuemi -

Sorry about all this, I appear to have opened a can of worms (as we say).

I hope your original question has been answered okay.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Harmonizing the C major scale:

C6: C E G A
Dm6: D F A B
Emb6: E G B C
F6: F A C D
G6: G B D E
Amb6: A C E F
Bmb5b6: B D F G

Harmonizing the C harmonic minor scale:

Cmb6: C Eb G Ab
Dmb5(6): D F Ab B [Ddim7]
EbAug6: Eb G B C
Fm6: F Ab C D
G(b6): G B D Eb
Ab6: Ab C Eb F
Bmb5b6: B D F G

Harmonizing the C melodic minor scale:

Cm6: C Eb G A
Dm6: D F A B
EbAug6: Eb G B C
F6: F A C D
G(b6): G B D Eb
Amb5b6: A C Eb F
Bmb5b6: B D F G

[ragman1]

Very good, but I'm not sure what to do with it.

[ColinO]

Very good, but I'm not sure what to do with it.

I assumed his point was that m6 chords do appear when you harmonize a number of scales. You just have to harmonize them using 6ths rather than 7ths. In that way, your premise that m6 chords don't derive from the scales would be incorrect.

[ragman1]

I assumed his point was that m6 chords do appear when you harmonize a number of scales. You just have to harmonize them using 6ths rather than 7ths.

If you change the system, of course.

In that way, your premise that m6 chords don't derive from the scales would be incorrect.

I meant they don't derive when using the standard 7ths harmonisation. And there must be a good reason why we use that system as opposed to the 6ths system or any other.

We do standardly use the 7ths system yet the m6 chord, derived from another system, still appears in lead sheets. I actually think we've answered it now. It appears to be for ease of reference rather than spelling out inversions. Either that or it's simply a colour note added to other 7th system chords.

But thanks anyway. By the way, why do you play your Satin Doll bass comp so fast? Isn't it usually quite a leisurely tune?

[ColinO]

By the way, why do you play your Satin Doll bass comp so fast? Isn't it usually quite a leisurely tune?

That was a couple years ago. I don't know why I did that. I probably liked it at the time. I actually forgot it was there.