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Someone (anyone) tell me what I'm doing wrong - clicking 'Manage Attachments' takes me to a pop up where I can browse to the MP3's, I select 'em, click upload & either nothing happens or I get a message telling me 'uploading...' it never gets beyond 40% & then....
Originally Posted by jordanklemons
Tried ethernet, thinking the wifi might be maxed out (damn kids) but no joy. there don't seem to be size limits on mp3's so I'm stuck....
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04-09-2018 07:38 AM
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It's easier to host MP3s somewhere else e.g. soundcloud or dropbox and just post the link here. Originally Posted by dot75
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How can you analyse jazz music with tools that don't include or relate to 7 chords? That's like analysing prose with tools that don't include or relate to nouns. Or verbs. Or even spelling. Originally Posted by Jonah
And what have the tools to do with the actual music? The music is important, not the tool. The tool may be inadequate. The result of the analysis is only as good as the tool. If the tool's inadequate so will the analysis be.
I really can't see the point of this.
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Think about upper structures, ragman-- triads abound!
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Triads are a micro view of 7ths. 7th's are a micro view of 13ths. 13ths are a micro view of the chromatic scale.How can you analyse jazz music with tools that don't include or relate to 7 chords?
The chromatic scale is a micro view of all sound audible to humans. Sound audible to humans is a micro view
of all existing vibrations in the universe or something like that..........
Jordan is as I understand it, extracting harmonic content garnered by his observations of the melody.
Connecting to the harmonic implications of a melody is a step above just playing off the changes, an approach
although accurate and even brilliant at times, can fail to distinguish one song from another.
C13(#11)
C/Eo/Gm/Bb+/D....F#o/Am
I like macro and micro viewpoints.
The chromatic scale contains much info to take in.
7 note scales, the basic bread and butter of harmony but still a lot of info.
I have been playing around recently with an idea that someone called "hybridized pentatonics".
Adding one more note to a given 7th chord.
Jordan is doing something similar with triad + 1.
The advantage of going small is you can more easily become familiar with a sonic color associated
with the particular collection harmonic intervals.
He models very well how much music can be created from such a focused note collection.
I also like thinking in dyads, perhaps next year I can scale it back to monads.
Triads are not the whole story, but they represent much more than 1 3 5.
They may not be the perfect tool to achieve a macro view but they can usher us into the trenches
with a close up view of some cool details.
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Well, maybe I'm a bit slow but, to me, most things are simple. When I see something that's so complicated that it takes some kind of PhD to work it all out then I tend to disregard it. I don't believe it's that complicated.
I know about triads, extensions, upper structures, etc. But Jonah's point was about tools, I believe. Since most tunes use 7 chords I don't see the point of an analysis that doesn't include or relate to them.
I mean, if somebody would like to put this into nice simple language for me perhaps I'll get it :-)
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Jordan's lessons are super specific and to the point. It's better to look at those I think then get bogged down in discussion here, then you can see if you get on with them or not.
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Triads are incredibly stable structures and therefore offer a wonderful organization system for creating resolution. Add a non-triad note against it and it will create tension which will want to resolve to the triad. This creates tension and resolution, and thus, melody. This can allow us the ability to improvise simple melodies horizontally through a single chord or a chord progression in a way that's different from arpeggiating chords vertically. It allows for the horizontal development of tension and resolution that can be used for outlining 1-3-5-7 structures of the chord progression, but is freed from the constraints of only being able to do so and can move freely through the lower or upper structure of any chord... depending on what the player wants. Originally Posted by ragman1
Once the basic idea of creating tension and resolution makes sense conceptually and in the ear, then we can analyze tunes to find the triads that the melody appears to be composed around, and we can then improvise lines and phrases directly from the melody which respect the chord progression, but which are not derived by outlining the chord progression.
Here's a clip of me improvising over Blue in Green by using the melodic triads of the tune instead of outlining the chord progression.
Also, I'm planning on filming a video at some point displaying the "sound experiment" I laid out a few posts back. It may have looked complicated typed out, but it's incredibly simple. I think once you listen to it played (either in the video I post or just by picking up your guitar and playing through a few scales and chord voicings) it will come off as far more simple than the typed out theory makes it seem. It's literally just about tension and resolution.
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Beautiful. Can you break this down or is that a bit of an ask?
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Ok, here's the listening experiment/exploration. Try not to get too caught up on the intellectual stuff and the theory. Just see if you can hear the simplicity of the melodic tension and resolution first. Then if you like the sounds and are intrigued enough, go back up to a few posts back where I wrote out all the voicings and everything and try playing it... see if you can spot the C major triad governing all of this stuff.
Then if you're still interested and want to understand more, we can talk theory...
Hope this helps get us into our ears and simplify all the talk down into some basic truths of music... tension and resolution... melody and harmony... etc
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Thanks Christian.... teeeeeeeechnically speaking... once the month ends, the study guide for that month disappears. The group, it's study materials, and our twice monthly open office hours are all free... but this month (by request from the group) we launched a private insiders type membership thing for those who want to dig in deeper. It includes a private hangout area and unlimited access (instead of monthly) to all of our past, current, and future study materials. Originally Posted by christianm77
So if you want the full monthly study guide for that month with the videos, explanations, breakdowns, etc... that's how you would be able to get that (also by request of our members we're going to be launching an archive in the near future where people can just purchase individual study guides from the past if they don't want to join the private area but just want one specific study guide to work on for more than a month).
That said, I don't mind sharing the pdf that breaks down the "melodic progression" of Blue in Green that we studied as a group back in February. It may or may not make sense without any of the other materials and videos... I don't know. But I'll link it below if you want to take a look at it. I hope it's helpful!
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Hmmmm. This relates to some ideas I had of using Barry Harris added note scales on US chords. For instance C7 on Bbmaj7. For instance the C7 bebop scale against Bb....
Dominant on dorian minor is a common trope - take a listen to the first line of Cannonball's solo on Milestones and tell me he isn't thinking C7 (and possibly a Db7 sideslip) on Gm11.
In all of these cases the US becomes the new 'chord tones.' I agree Parker was doing this.
However, did he conceive of these paths as vertical relationships I wonder. There are certainly ways of hearing polytonal superpositions where the vertical relationships seem a little tenuous. Cm6 on C#o7 in Gmajor is a classic example.
Like Cannonball ends his phrase with a B on the Gm and it sounds right.
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Thanks man! I take it the chord indicates the triad and the little scale degree thingy indicates the added note. Originally Posted by jordanklemons
It'll be more enjoyable for me to try and connect the dots.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Yeah, I think you unlocked the puzzle
The bottom line shows the basic chord as it might be written in the real book. The top line notates the melodic triad we're using and the "primary" tension note to get started. That's the quadratonic idea I got from Stefon. In theory, as I showed in the last video, you can absolutely use scales, modes, bebop scales, enclosures, chromaticism, ornamentation, etc... it's all possible. Stefon was brilliant enough to realize that the most important element is the ability to learn to hear and have control over creating tension and resolution. So he figured, why start with a full scale... just take the resolution notes and add a single tension note to it to minimize our options so that we can focus on what's most important... tension and resolution... and the melodic movement that produces. But we can add 2 tension notes to get a pentatonic, or 3 to get a hexatonic, or any other type of ornamentation, etc.
I saw you joined the group... VERY excited to have you with us. Love your playing and hope you'll contribute some videos from time to time. If you look around and watch videos from some of our other members you'll see lots of people coming up with very different sounding music all using this concept. It's not meant to force everyone into a cookie cutter mold... it's actually quite freeing and helping everyone follow their own ears and create more of the sounds they love in a more personal and intimate way. Some really amazing sounding players in there!
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As for the 7th chord put over top of a different chord. I can't really speak with any expertise on that topic. I'm absolutely sure it's a possibility, it's just not a world I've explored much. As of yet, I find it difficult to hear a 4 note chord (like a 7 chord) where all 4 notes sound resolved and stable. My ear always comes back to hearing some triad as the stable points and one the remaining 4th note as still wanting to move. Even with 6 chords, I still hear it wanting to move. Like C6 I hear as a stable C triad with a 6 tension. It's a very easy and digestible form of tension... which is why I have ZERO argument against the way BH uses it. It doesn't bother or offend my ear in the slightest. But for my own ability to play, I hear it as a tension. It is possible to use a triad that includes the 6 of a chord, and THEN I would hear the 6 as a stable note. Like I might use an A minor triad over a C chord and then I've got my 6 as a stable melody note.
But I fully recognize that there are other ways of exploring and hearing. When i was studying with Stefon, NYU brought in Chick Corea to give a masterclass and they had Lenny White (who is on drum faculty) interview him, play some duo with him, and then let students ask questions. And one thing Stefon noticed that Chick did (which we geeked out about HARDCORE later when we were hanging out talking) was he played a fully extended chord with a shell voicing in his left hand and a triad in his right... and then he held down the sustain pedal and played an entirely different triad way up in the upper register of the piano!!!! So a triad superimposed over a triad superimposed over a shell voicing!! O_O
It sounded so lush and 3-dimensional. It felt so alive that you could just walk inside the sound and interact with it. It was unreal.
I've played around in my mind how I could begin to explore those types of sounds. But there is SO MUCH to master just with the "basic" idea of a triad over a chord that I feel like I'll start working on all that crazy stuff in like 30 or 40 years... maybe. hahaha
And then I'll try the 7 chord superimpositions when I'm 90.
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OK, so I've looked at it and I have some thoughts/queries
1) the added tension note does not seem to be a passing tone from the melody. I think on every occasion it is the third or seventh of the written chord in the cases where that note is not already present in the melodic triad.
2) the melodic triad is often based on one melodic note - therefore is there a rule by which certain melodic triads are chosen, or is this an aesthetic choice? I could reverse engineer the relationships and blat out another standard this way, but I'd like to know that before.
For instance using the major triad a major third lower (bVI sub) on an altered. This is more 'necessary' in the case of the note C on A7, then it is in the case of the note C on E7, but obviously works well for both.
For the melody D against a F7b9 chord you use the major a minor third lower. A fairly obvious choice for this chord (F13b9).
3) vis a vis your other video, the added the fun/problematic chord for me is the A triad on Bb, and not hearing the D as a resolved note but instead a tension note. (It's not that wild a chord extension wise - the A/Bb or even Bbmaj7#11#9 chord appears in D harmonic minor and Dmin6-dim, but it's not something I really used so thanks...)
It's cool though. I like that sound a lot. But I'm not sure I hear it in the original melody as it is written in the Real Book - it seems perverse to not view/hear that C# as a LNT for the 3rd D. If we hear the C# as the true harmonic tone, the D is unresolved and leaps to an F, which is strange from the point of view of the usual melodic logic of chord tones in classical music and jazz.
Also the F is overlooked here, no? Is this another aesthetic choice?
however on the actual recording Miles takes that phrase so late in the bar that the other notes spill into the A7#9 bar afterwards... So... Maybe that's what you meant.
4) So... this is an exercise in hearing 3rds and 7ths in chords as tension notes against melodic US tones...
I'll have another listen to your playing video.Last edited by christianm77; 04-09-2018 at 03:55 PM.
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So, say I am looking at Just Friends... Bar 1
OK, B on C maj7
So seventh is in the melody, obviously, that gives us these 6 options of major and minor triads:
Em (E G B)
E (E G# B)
Bm (B D F#)
B (B D# F#)
G (G B D)
G#m (G# B D#)
Em is the most obvious choice, followed by G, but let's use instead one of the more fruity choices, such as E.
Well E might be a bit boring cos both the melody note and the third is in the chord. So what would we choose as a tension note? Maybe G (#2)?
So we have say B and add in a tension note of the 3rd E, so we get B/4 like for Bbmaj7#11 in the Blue in Green example...Both subdominant function chords incidentally.
Or... Would we/could we choose another one? Perhaps G#m/b6? do you tend to work consistently with the same ideas or do you like to mix it up?
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Oof... some BIG questions, Christian. I fear we may veer off into theory land and make things sound incredibly complicated and scare some folks away. I don't mind terribly. All great questions. And all of these are the types of things we break down and talk about each month in the study material and our open office hours.
Answers to questions in first post:
(1) Yes... fantastic that you noticed that. So I learned all of this stuff studying with my ear and with theory at the piano with Stefon. We didn't start with tunes. I spent MONTHS just in academic land with him.. and loving every second of it. After I developed a decent vocabulary of tonalities (understanding both single note improv AND chord voicings within each... and how integrally the two were connected), then I started analyzing tunes. When dealing with a melodic triad we have 9 possible tension notes or "quadratonics". 12 chromatic notes minus the 3 that exist in the triad itself leaves 9 leftovers. This is sort of the chromatic version of the BH 6 vs diminished thing. We have the triad vs anything else. BUT, that's obviously WAY too unrestrictive to be able to play tonal music... so we prioritize. When I talk about THE quadratonic, or the "primary" quadratonic... I'm talking about how do we tie the melodic triad back inside the chord in the most concise way. Remember, our real goal is to shift away from ONLY thinking about the 1-3-5-7 stuff in the left hand of the piano player and to put our priority on the triad in the right hand... but we want to create the illusion that we're hearing both. So the best way to do that and stay strongly harmonic is to borrow notes from the left hand. So 3rds and 7ths are huge. Every note from the melody of Blue in Green is still available for use as a tension note... and most would be the 2nd most important tension note. But you're right, that's not the starting point for selecting "the best" tension note. THAT part is where we actually pay our respects to the concept of the 7th chord. It gets first pick in the draft so to speak. That said... SOMETIMES there's something SO unique and interesting in the melody of a tune that I will make an exception. For instance in Stella (pretty sure you already know this) we have two instances where the melody lays into the 4 over a major chord and then resolves to the 3. This is pretty uncommon in the jazz language and REALLY helps make Stella such a unique and interesting tune. So in those types of situations I put the normal "rules" on the backburner and let the tune call the shots. We looked at that tune in March.
(2) Yes and no. Again, I'm attempting to avoid getting into 6 months of only talking theory with people before playing music... so I'm jumping straight for application to tunes. The melodic triad is generally selected based on the notes I'm hearing in the melody that I interpret as the resolution points. But there is no THE melodic progression to a tune. Different people can hear the melody phrased differently and it will yield other results. The best answer is to learn a good handful of the most useful melodic triads, get them in your ear, and then start looking at tunes and seeing what you hear and want and like there. And I think the best method for that is to see tunes analyzed this way already (which is part of what we do in the study group) and to begin focusing your ear on learning new tonalities (which is the other half of what we do... every month we get a new tune and a new fully-extended tonality to study harmonically and melodically... this month was different... we took a break to talk about Bird and bebop vocabulary). As you get your ear more in tune with these types of sounds, you'll be able to start hearing piano players play these tunes and recognize that they're harmonizing the melody with pretty specific tonal choices... I often play my voicings along with theirs to see if I made a "good" choice with each chord.
(3) A major over BbMaj7 is a much more unconventional sound then just a basic A/Bb slash chord. This is fully a BbMaj7 chord and should contain the D note in the piano players' left hand (or for us... somewhere in the lower structure of the chord - X1[0]220)
I can't remember now if it was in the video from the study guide that month or in one of the open office hours that I laid out a more conventional choice would be D minor. A perfect go to for creating a BbMaj7#11 is a D minor triad with the 2 added for tension. We could DEFINITELY see the C# as a leading tone and analyze the melody that way. In the video I played this and phrased it to make the C# sound tense and the D sound resolved. But I also offered a more modern sound by changing my phrasing, shortening the D note and really laying into the C# and holding it. A lot of members had a hard time hearing it at first, but after some time and practice they started to get the vibe. A good way to get it (if you're interested) is play a BbMaj7 shell in your left hand at the piano and play the A major triad in your right. Hold down the sustain pedal and then have your guitar in your lap and try playing the (A)/4 over it. It makes it easier. The F note isn't being ignored. the F is the 5th of the BbMaj7 chord, so following the rules of harmony within melodic triads, that would be the secondary quadratonic... the 2nd most important tension note. In this case, both melodic triads could work. It's all about learning what they sound like, how the organize the tension and resolution, and then making artistic decisions about what we want to convey emotionally with our playing.
(4) Generally speaking, using the rules that Stefon laid out that I attempted for months to disprove before realizing that he's just too f'n brilliant and that he nailed it on the head... the 3rd is the first most important tension note, and the 7th is the next most important. But there are LOTS of exceptions. It doesn't always work out that simply. But the general idea is that we're trying to tie the right hand of the piano player and the left hand (the melodic structure and the harmonic structure) into one single entity that conveys the architecture of the melody, while still remaining grounded in, and respectful of, the harmony.
Next post will respond to your questions re Just Friends....
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Jordan -
I've been looking at it. I think I've got it and your pdf helped.
I think I can see where this is coming from, and why. I might be putting it into fairly traditional terms but it nevertheless makes sense, to me at least. Gm7 plus a C triad is kind of C7/Gm6. A7 plus an F triad is like A7+/D harmonic (it's going to a Dm). Am triad over Dm is like Dm9... etc. Only it simplifies it playing-wise in terms of scales vs. notes.
If I've got this wrong, do tell me :-)
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I haven't actually sat and really dug into Just Friends with this method yet... and I'm not going to even bother picking up my guitar right now, because once we know how these things sound, a lot of this can be done intellectually... which is fun.
Right off the top, I'm gonna go ahead and say that E minor is by far the best choice. You can DEFINITELY experiment with the other triads you mentioned and will likely find some really out there stuff. But for playing the tune the way it was likely intended to be heard, E minor looks like the sweet spot.
Check this out, forget the tune for a second. If we use Eminor over CMaj7... what's our tension note? Well the 3rd, 7th, and 5th are all already taken care of in the triad. The C root note would add tension, but it wouldn't add any color or depth to the harmony AND the bass player is already covering it... so we generally hold off to the end with that note... sort of a hail mary move when we're out of options. The 9? We can't add that because that creates a G major triad, and major is more sonically stable than minor so we'll end up tricking our ear into hearing this as a G major triad and completely changing the characteristic of the entire tonality by accident. 11 we never add to a major chord (remember what I said above with the exception in Stella?). The #11 we COULD add, but again, it depends on how out and modern you want to be. It's not very conventional to put a #11 on the tonic 1 chord to start a tune out with. How about the 13? That works, right? The 13 is my primary tension note to use against a minor triad like this over a Maj7 chord. Not because of the melody of this tune... but because Stefon is f'n brilliant and following his way of thinking, it will yield the most beautiful, melodic, AND harmonically respectful note to create melodies with.
And would you look at that????
Check out what the melody of the tune does. This type of stuff happens WAY more often than you'd think. So not only will (E-)/4 sound super cool and give all sorts of lovely bluesy vibes to playing over this CMaj7 chord, but even without meaning to, you'll literally be playing around inside the actual melody. Not quoting the melody... just referencing it and its contour.
Other triads could work, but will definitely take us into much more modern territory.
The B major triad over CMaj7 (like the Blue in Green) I would be very careful with. The melody has an A note, so if you were to try using the B triad, you'd end up accidentally creating a B7 sound over a major7 sound, and while Cannonball might be able to pull it off... I can't. I always try and avoid creating the dominant7 sound unless I'm playing over a dominant7 chord, as it's just such a potent sound. I want something that feels like a stable tonic... even if it's a modern version of it.
A similar problem is going to happen with the Ab minor triad. The A in the melody is the b2 and when you put a b2 over a minor chord it starts to imply a dominant7 vibe again. I only use this in very rare instances when the tune really asks for it. Like near the end of Blue Bossa. I hear that as a G minor triad with the b2... but it's behaving like a dominant7 to get us back to the C- chord.
The E major triad could work and would be a good way to get a very modern sound if that's what you wanted. Only thing to be careful of is that there's two different EMaj/CMaj7 chords... and they function differently. One is CMaj7b13 and the other is CMaj7#5. They're different. The melody as the natural 13, which means the harmony can't be the b13 version, it's gotta be the #5. This changes things when it comes to what tension notes we add.
The E triad already has the 3, the 7, and the 5 (since we decided to treat the Ab/G# as the #5 and not the b13). So next would be the 9. Problem! the 9 of C is a D note, and when you add that against the E triad... dominant7 sound hahahaha
So that won't work. How about the #11? Boom... that works. F#. (E)/2
The next tension note after the 11 would be the 13, the A note. Not only does it work, but it's in the melody, which means this would actually work pretty well for this tune... if we wanted something modern. So we could also use (E)/4
We could also then take it one step further and add the C root note back in and get a 6 note scale. But, just remember that if you add the C note back into the melody, it's still going to function MELODICALLY as a tension note. It's not going to FEEL like the melodic 'Do'.. it's going to feel like 'Le'.
I know that's A LOT and will likely scare away many of the folks who want something simple. We're talking about triads, so it's all build on the most basic fundamentals. But as we progress with it, the simplicity of triads allows for infinite complexity and variation. This is an example of some VERY complex ideas... but it's still built on top of just a basic triad.
All of the theory aside, we end up with a basic 1-2-3-4-5 "scale" that we can use to create melodies with. Try droning out the low 6th string and playing the 1-2-3-4-5 of an Ab major scale, but then don't go beyond that. Come back down and resolve to Ab. That's pentatonic scale for this chord. Sounds really melodically simple, doesn't it?
Now if we want to REALLY get complicated, we could turn this penta scale into chord voicings by just playing the top, middle, and bottom voices and inverting it... try all over these over a droning 6th string and you'll hear an EMaj7#5 with a natural 13 and a #11...
(0)xx15.14.16
(0)xx13.13.11
(0)xx8.11.9
(0)xx698
(0)xx546
(0)xx324
Pretty wild, yeah?
Sorry to anyone who was already dizzy from the theory. This is some very advanced application of these ideas. But the basic idea of a triad like E minor over CMaj7 shouldn't be overly complex... or treating the E note as the melodic "do" and adding the 4th (A) against that E minor triad and using it to play tension and resolution over a CMaj7 chord.
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You notated a couple of things a little differently than I would have, and like I said to Christian, I personally would avoid thinking in terms of 7 chords as far as the sound that's being superimposed over top of the 7 chord as the triad offers a stronger sense of pure resolution... but yes... this is exactly the idea. It's about learning to dig inside of a chord/scale/mode and to be able to get incredibly specific and offer enormous harmonic and melodic clarity without looking for sounds or noodling inside scales. Specific triads over, like you mentioned a D-7, will offer very unique and specific qualities to that D-7... like a D-9, or a D-11,9 etc. Knowing those options and how to access them is actually a very simple thing to do and the sounds they yield are immediate, mostly recognizable, and very simple. That said, because they're triads they can get as complex and advanced as you want them to. Just read what I wrote above to Christian and it will be enough to make the world feel like it's spinning. But it's all the same stuff. Just bringing out specific chord tones and extensions and giving them more respect and importance in our lines. And teaching our ears to hear those and get used to them so we can use them naturally and improvisationally. Originally Posted by ragman1
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We are avoiding dom7 sounds then? Originally Posted by jordanklemons
I haven't actually sat and really dug into Just Friends with this method yet... and I'm not going to even bother picking up my guitar right now, because once we know how these things sound, a lot of this can be done intellectually... which is fun.
Right off the top, I'm gonna go ahead and say that E minor is by far the best choice. You can DEFINITELY experiment with the other triads you mentioned and will likely find some really out there stuff. But for playing the tune the way it was likely intended to be heard, E minor looks like the sweet spot.
Check this out, forget the tune for a second. If we use Eminor over CMaj7... what's our tension note? Well the 3rd, 7th, and 5th are all already taken care of in the triad. The C root note would add tension, but it wouldn't add any color or depth to the harmony AND the bass player is already covering it... so we generally hold off to the end with that note... sort of a hail mary move when we're out of options. The 9? We can't add that because that creates a G major triad, and major is more sonically stable than minor so we'll end up tricking our ear into hearing this as a G major triad and completely changing the characteristic of the entire tonality by accident. 11 we never add to a major chord (remember what I said above with the exception in Stella?). The #11 we COULD add, but again, it depends on how out and modern you want to be. It's not very conventional to put a #11 on the tonic 1 chord to start a tune out with. How about the 13? That works, right? The 13 is my primary tension note to use against a minor triad like this over a Maj7 chord. Not because of the melody of this tune... but because Stefon is f'n brilliant and following his way of thinking, it will yield the most beautiful, melodic, AND harmonically respectful note to create melodies with.
And would you look at that????
Check out what the melody of the tune does. This type of stuff happens WAY more often than you'd think. So not only will (E-)/4 sound super cool and give all sorts of lovely bluesy vibes to playing over this CMaj7 chord, but even without meaning to, you'll literally be playing around inside the actual melody. Not quoting the melody... just referencing it and its contour.
Other triads could work, but will definitely take us into much more modern territory.
The B major triad over CMaj7 (like the Blue in Green) I would be very careful with. The melody has an A note, so if you were to try using the B triad, you'd end up accidentally creating a B7 sound over a major7 sound, and while Cannonball might be able to pull it off... I can't. I always try and avoid creating the dominant7 sound unless I'm playing over a dominant7 chord, as it's just such a potent sound. I want something that feels like a stable tonic... even if it's a modern version of it.
A similar problem is going to happen with the Ab minor triad. The A in the melody is the b2 and when you put a b2 over a minor chord it starts to imply a dominant7 vibe again. I only use this in very rare instances when the tune really asks for it. Like near the end of Blue Bossa. I hear that as a G minor triad with the b2... but it's behaving like a dominant7 to get us back to the C- chord.
The E major triad could work and would be a good way to get a very modern sound if that's what you wanted. Only thing to be careful of is that there's two different EMaj/CMaj7 chords... and they function differently. One is CMaj7b13 and the other is CMaj7#5. They're different. The melody as the natural 13, which means the harmony can't be the b13 version, it's gotta be the #5. This changes things when it comes to what tension notes we add.
The E triad already has the 3, the 7, and the 5 (since we decided to treat the Ab/G# as the #5 and not the b13). So next would be the 9. Problem! the 9 of C is a D note, and when you add that against the E triad... dominant7 sound hahahaha
So that won't work. How about the #11? Boom... that works. F#. (E)/2
The next tension note after the 11 would be the 13, the A note. Not only does it work, but it's in the melody, which means this would actually work pretty well for this tune... if we wanted something modern. So we could also use (E)/4
We could also then take it one step further and add the C root note back in and get a 6 note scale. But, just remember that if you add the C note back into the melody, it's still going to function MELODICALLY as a tension note. It's not going to FEEL like the melodic 'Do'.. it's going to feel like 'Le'.
I know that's A LOT and will likely scare away many of the folks who want something simple. We're talking about triads, so it's all build on the most basic fundamentals. But as we progress with it, the simplicity of triads allows for infinite complexity and variation. This is an example of some VERY complex ideas... but it's still built on top of just a basic triad.
All of the theory aside, we end up with a basic 1-2-3-4-5 "scale" that we can use to create melodies with. Try droning out the low 6th string and playing the 1-2-3-4-5 of an Ab major scale, but then don't go beyond that. Come back down and resolve to Ab. That's pentatonic scale for this chord. Sounds really melodically simple, doesn't it?
Now if we want to REALLY get complicated, we could turn this penta scale into chord voicings by just playing the top, middle, and bottom voices and inverting it... try all over these over a droning 6th string and you'll hear an EMaj7#5 with a natural 13 and a #11...
(0)xx15.14.16
(0)xx13.13.11
(0)xx8.11.9
(0)xx698
(0)xx546
(0)xx324
Pretty wild, yeah?
Sorry to anyone who was already dizzy from the theory. This is some very advanced application of these ideas. But the basic idea of a triad like E minor over CMaj7 shouldn't be overly complex... or treating the E note as the melodic "do" and adding the 4th (A) against that E minor triad and using it to play tension and resolution over a CMaj7 chord.
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That's up to you I suppose. For me, the sound of a dominant7 is simply to distinctive of a quality, and to demanding of movement and resolution harmonically speaking that I try to avoid using it over chords UNLESS they're dominant7 chord. Then it's fine. Diminished seems to be fine too as they're so closely related. If it doesn't bother you, than you can choose to allow for them. But for me, I simply don't hear a dominant7 over a non-dominant chord and feel okay about it. Originally Posted by christianm77
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No, that makes sense.... Kinda... There are always exceptions of course... Originally Posted by jordanklemons
But in general I divide chords into two categories, static and resolving.... But you can turn one into the other.
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Thanks. Yes, when I said Gm7 and Dm7 I meant the basic triads GBbD and DFA. In fact, with the other triads on top, it gives you a pentatonic or hexatonic scale to play with... Originally Posted by jordanklemons
I've already recorded something and it sounds pretty good. Mind you, this is a slow and meaningful tune. I was wondering what happened with faster and more complex pieces.
By the way, what would you do with a diminished triad?
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