You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Levels of V7 Chords

Episode Date: March 4, 2021

On this week's episode, Peter and Adam take a deep-dive into one of the most commonly played chords in jazz tunes: the five-seven chord.Links from this episode:Get the free PDF for this episode by clicking this linkCheck out the YouTube video for this episode right here7 Levels of V7 ChordsAverage Amadeus - "Mozart | Piano Sonata No. 16" / The Beatles | "Hey Jude"High 5 - Louis Armstrong | "West End Blues" / Professor Longhair | "Big Chief"Diminishing Returns - Charlie Parker | "Donna Lee" / Clifford Brown | "Joy Spring"Blue 9 - Miles Davis | "All Blues" / John Coltrane | "Cousin Mary"Kitchen Sink - Wayne Shorter | "Footprints" / Bill Evans | "On Green Dolphin Street"Sus It Out - Roy Hargrove | "Firm Roots" / Herbie Hancock | "Gentle Thoughts"Bill's Decadent Diminished - Bill Evans | "Waltz For Debby"Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Yes. Are you resolved to resolve yourself? I'm feeling resolute. I'm feeling ready to resolve. Yes, I'm ready. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Music advice, coming at your right now. Coming at you right now, brought to you by Open Studio. Go to open studio, go to open studio, jazz.com. To make it happen, Peter, we're over there practicing every day at the daily guide of practice session. That's right. So hit us up over there.

But today, we're going to get right into it because I want to talk about something that we do talk about actually every day over there. And I thought we could have a little fun today with five chords, seven levels of the five-seven chord. Peter, you know how important a nice resolution is, going from the five to the one. And so I thought we could kind of go through seven different versions of the five chord and just talk about the differences. I love it. Question for you. I've already got a question. Why seven?

Because we have traditionally done lists of seven. Yes. And I thought it would be a nice, tight way to integrate our new format into our old format. So a list of seven, but I've got a ton of examples queued up here. We've got a PDF that will include a link here in the podcast description and here for our YouTube folks. We've got images, PDFs. You can get it right there in the description here in YouTube as well. And look, I've got my own PDF here.

But full disclosure, this is an episode of discovery, because I'm looking at this for the first time. This is the first time you're seeing it. Yes, you are just going to add some flavor to this because you know more about dominant chords than anybody. So I chose dominant chords today, Peter, because there are so many of them. Yes.

I can't think of another kind of chord where there are so many variables and options. And to me, it can be a little confusing. At least when I was a young musician, it was about what is what, and how do I use a flat? nine or a sharp nine or an altered or, you know, augmented or what are all those things and how can we use them? Yeah. So I thought we'd give just a brief tutorial of maybe seven of sort of the beginner levels of dominant courts.

I love it. Yeah. I mean, I was also similarly confused as a young lad growing up about, what, 27 miles or so and about 10 years before you in the greater St. Louis area on seventh, dominant seventh chords. Yeah. But I think that that also speaks to the. the possibilities, the transitional nature, the power, the possibilities of different places that it can go and resolve. Like when we're joking at the beginning about resolving, so many different directions, the same types of chords can resolve such an important chord and such a fun chord, both for improvising, for accompanying, for usage in composing, for usage in Asian cooking. No, maybe not for that, but many other things, though, right? Yeah, these are so versatile, and we'll see here, just in, like, the first couple of levels,

we'll see some examples where these are used in, the same different chords are used in many different ways. Yes. So, let's get to it. Let's go with number one here. All right. Number one, as you'll see in the PDF and here on screen on YouTube, is what we'll call the average Hamadeus.

Check it out. Average Amadeus. I'm checking it. Right? heard that before sound familiar well that that's not the dominant chord that was the next phrase though that was the next phrase that's the next phrase

but yeah this is the very oh he's got he's got it so this is the very what we'll call the average Amadeus this is the basic bob yeah of dominant chords this is just a 5-7 chord there's no nine on it there's no alterations to the extensions there's nothing crazy to it it's just literally

a dominant seventh chord here of course this is the Mozart Piano number 16 it's just literally C-Made That's our one to the five, seven, that's our five. Back to the one. Now, this isn't, of course, only used in classical music. This is used all the way up until modern day through modern pop music used on hits even up to this year. But some of the most well-known pop songs of all time.

Like, what do you know about this one? Hey, June. Right? Key of F, I think. Yep. Yeah. So F to C to C-7. right, that dominant seven, back to F.

And again, the structure here, as you can see, is literally just if we have our, we'll go back to the key of C, if we have our tonic here, the structure is just one, three, five, seven. That's it. And various inversions. I honestly think, Peter,

and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. This is one of the most difficult versions for your average jazz musician to get sounding good. Yes, I would absolutely agree on that because you get into, well, as we get into the higher levels, we rely on that to give the drama, to give the flavor,

to give that nuance of different things, and to give it the drama. But with this, you have to really just rely on that innate sense of harmonic resolution. Like there's nothing ironic about it. There's nothing mysterious about what it's doing. So whatever musicality and drama that you bring to it,

you need to bring it in another way than the harmony. That's right. And I actually think, if you haven't spent much time getting these together in various closed and open voicings in inversions, there's a lot to be learned from this chord with the bass in different places, like thinking about...

There's so much to be done. That from the four to the three, yeah, four to the three is a... Various ways that you can make this. This is what makes the dominant chord so versatile is it really does go between this tonic and everything else. Yep. So that's it.

That's our level one. Our first level of the five-seven chords is literally the five-seven. Now, next up is what we're calling the high five. High-five. The high-five has literally a raised fifth. Yes. It has no seventh, as you see here. It can have a seventh, and we'll talk about that.

But the very first version that we'll talk about is literally just here, if we have a G-augmented, G, B, and D-sharp, right? The raised fifth. Now this resolves to that E of C. Yep. And that's how it's usually used. Yep. Check this out. I have an example here.

This is Louis Armstrong, West End Blues. Ooh. Lewis. Armstrong. West End Blues. Bam. Bam. Lewis. It's coming.

Born in New Orleans. Louisiana. Parish of Orleans. The great Louis, Armstrong. strong Westin blues right here. So that B-flat augmented chord, right, going straight to our E-flat major.

Yep. And you know what's great about that one is you've got, and I don't think, is there a seventh in there? Maybe somebody's playing. I don't think so. I don't think so. I'll back it up just a hair. I mean, it certainly fits, but it yeah, somebody is playing. One person is, yeah. But that's not even really, what it's really about is, like that's, that's a leading tone of the blues that's about to come. That's what's a great thing. Here's a tune that I hear you play a lot,

which implies the same sort of thing, going from that sharp five to that third of the one. That's Professor Longhair with Big Chief does the same kind of thing. You hear Oscar Peterson do this kind of thing all the time. Then there's another variable of this.

Thelonious Monk might use a sharp five, but he'll use it with the whole tone scale. Yes. So you get, I don't have an example for this, but I know you know all this. Right, as the five chord going to a one could be like the variable. Yeah, well, it's almost like connect. I would say it's almost like a connecting the dots situation with, with Thelonious Monk.

Or any time, like, if you're taking the whole tone scale with that with the high five, you're just connecting the dots that are already there with the other whole tones. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense. So that's level two. That's the, that's the high five. Sorry. You're just connecting the.

That's level two. Yes. That is the high five. Level three is diminishing returns. Okay. So now is where we get into some straight ahead jazz stuff, some really, you know, past 1950 stuff. Oh, can we just jump back real quick to the second?

Because I know this is, I haven't even looked ahead. Back to the high five. Just to let folks know in case you're thinking, oh, that's just a flat nine. It's really not. This is different than, like if you had this sort of G7, are we on G? Yeah, like G dominant seventh, third, flat 13, seventh.

It's not a flat 13. It's not a flat thing. Like E flat and I'm not talking about the N harmonic difference. We're not so much worried about that. We're talking about function. Because this is really, right? Okay, sorry. So good.

Okay, so back to... Number three is diminishing returns. Now, this is, we call this Diminishing Returns. This is a 13 flat 9 chord or just the flat 9 chord. And this could actually have a sharp 9 as well. I consider this like a diminished scale harmony or based off of that sort of thing. right, this diminished, this. So if we're going to see here, it's like a B diminished shape.

Now, here the voicing I have as an example. I love that voicing. Yeah. That's like a classic flat nine voicing. You can hear this in a few places like maybe this. There. There. Yep.

And that's why I think you're saying with the diminished, why you would lead to the sharp nine possibly as a situation that's someone over the F, right? Totally. Totally. Check out this one too. Here's an example of a head that uses flat nine chords all over the place. One of the greatest in jazz history here. Big Max Roach has played a flat nine with the snare girl on that.

Damn, right, he is. Man. So especially all over that bridge is a bunch of diminished scale, kind of diminished shapes for sure, flat nine harmony. So that's our level three diminishing returns. Those are, again, you can check that out. based off of like diminished scale harmony, a G half whole diminished scale harmony.

Although that's not always the scale you could use, but that's definitely one that you would deploy, as you like to say. Deploy, right. And I think these are good for like, if you think about maybe, I don't know, trying to hear these. You know, I know you like to talk about with the ear training, you know, identifying intervals based upon different songs

that you would know, the parts of the melodic line. always think for these that kind of even though you could that's the that's what is that what's new even though you could say like this will start to give you the idea about the different levels that we've already done this is average amadeus yeah yeah totally and then high five yeah you know and then but here we're none of these are right or wrong they're just different options but for the situation this one of the three we've had so far for for for the beginning of what's new maybe your best option. And this is with the third on top going to the root.

Beautiful. It's beautiful. But way did you hear level seven. Whoa. Bam. Way to hear level seven. All right. Let's do it.

So level four, our fourth level of our five, seven chords is the blue nine. This is the sharp nine. This is specifically the sharp nine. This isn't the altar. This isn't the diminished scale. Yeah. This is a very specific sense. Peter and I actually I differentiate this differentiate this between those other two. Check

this out. This is all blues from Miles Davis. Who? There's that sharp nine. Isn't that great? Again there, this is a G blues so he uses this this sharp nine here. I mean that that actually is kind of an altered thing. But check it out. How about John Coltrane on Cousin Mary? These are a series of sharp nine chords going to a flat. Wait, before you play it, can we just talk about so one element of this because you've Like in your example, we got the sharp nine on top. And like you were saying with the inversions, make such a difference on that.

We got Miles. I think Cannibal and Traynor down here maybe. And then Miles is here. So you've got the... It really adds to that blues feel because he's up on the fifth. So you got that sharp nine beneath it, right? Yeah, yeah. But then that...

That still is kind of lingering there, that third. Now, it doesn't sound very bluesy when I sing it in that reggae. You said, hey, he, he, but think about somebody hip singing it. That sounds pretty good, though. That's more of my register there. But that's why the inversions matter so much with these. I think this is why I think of this specific shape, right? This shape as the Sharp 9 sound, right?

That's very much that chord. Check out John Coltrane. This is Cousin Mary, second track off of Giant Steps. I love this head so much. Yeah. But that second chord, that E-flat, Sharp-9, And that's all about that Jimmy Hendricks. Yeah.

I mean, I know that's after this. Really? I never knew train was so influenced by Jimmy Hendricks. No, but it's that. Maybe the other way around. Foxy lady is like, I think, the most famous example of the sharp line that there is. Stupid question for me. Yeah.

Okay. What is the time? Count this off for the melody. Just so I always get confused on this. So it's like one, two, one, two, one, two, or is it one, two, one, two, three, four. That one. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. So regardless, what's important. important on that is the timing, I mean, this chord, I agree, I love that, especially that register, come on. But the timing of it, of where it lays in that quarter note syncopation with these kind of dominant chords really makes a difference. So on the Miles Davis example, it was very much on the one, there wasn't really any syncopation. It was just like right at the top of the measures in the three. This one's like, oh, good, get in the two, do, do, do, do, no.

So there's that little delayed thing with the swing. And then you hear the way, is this PC on here? Yeah. Yeah. The way he staggers the walking and stuff. That all works. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So great.

And this is also, of course, all over, blue train. This is a very common. And again, I think of the sharp nine as that shape. Yes. Right? You have the third, seven, and then just the sharp nine. Like anything else and we'll get into the altar, which is next, our next level. Level number five, we're calling the kitchen sink.

Because some people describe the altered chord and the altered scale is everything is flat or sharp. Yes. Except for the root. Right. Okay. I'm trying to read that. What do we have? Okay. Oh, no, I've got it right here.

I just got a little. Oh, I like it. Just a little voicing that might really imply strongly the altered. Yeah. So what I think is interesting already about this. This is not something I play a lot. like that actual voice? Me neither actually, yeah, yeah.

Why you got it on here? Well, because I couldn't do two because I think about more this combination of those triads. But what's so great about this is it's a very... Why did you do it then? If you take away the sharp 11

or you have it as a flat and fifth, I guess that's probably right, flat of fifth, very different sound when you've got the flat, like your traditional more kind of altered sharp 9, flat 13.

Ooh, that's so different just adding that one, which is obviously part of that same sound, though, right? But it is different. It is very different. Yeah, yeah. I like it. So, some examples of how to use the altered.

How about this one? Now, that's a little bit of a misdirection, because that's not actually a five going to a one, as you know. Right. So which one is it, which one is it that he's... So all of that whole series, those are all kind of altered dominant sounds, right? to improvise over them.

So there's sharp 11, or sorry, sharp nine things. Yeah. But definitely, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was about to have to direct you to my award-winning video. Don't F up. Believe me, I watched it before. But here's one that you might not think of. Check this out, the bridge of this tune or the B section of this tune for a nice example of altered scales.

Yes. Or altered chords. Right there. So that, this is, of course, Green Dolphin Street, key of E flat. That's Bill Evans. So there you could use like a flat nine diminished thing, but he definitely is doing an altered chord there. Yep.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great one. That's good, is it? So altered can be really a way to go very dark on just a normal 2-5. Don't go dark on me, bro. No, I'll go dark. I'll go dark. So number six, we're almost done.

Wow. We are rocking along in our seven levels of five, seven chords. We're making it happen. Number six is... Bam. Suss it out. Suss it out. Suss it out. I have that going to a minor. Yeah, what's up with? Don't go dark on me, bro. That could easily go to a, that should say C major. That's just a bad chord change.

You're like I've got to go into a minor. I had something else. That's my bad. That's my bad. So this could be, but you see the notation there is actually. You don't know, but he's my brother. That's how you can remember that. Well, I got one for you. I got one for you. Firm roots. Yeah. Roy Hargrove. Suss chords abound. Yes.

All about the Suss. It's a beautiful dominant chord. And then maybe you slip in a little great over a pedal point. Man. So, good. How about another example here from Herbert Hancock? That one right there. That five chord.

So I always, you know what I always hear this as? I don't know about here it is. Or just conceptualize. It's really two tries. So you got A over B, but that's the Suss, right? The B sus. Is that the one you were thinking of for this? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And then E major seven, but I like to think about that as like a B over E. B over E. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, for the one chord, do you mean? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's beautiful.

A little triadic movement. Oh, man. So that's the Suss has this very optimistic. Yeah. It's almost a not resolved resolution. Yeah. That's gentle thoughts from secrets, Herbie Hancock, by the way. And also what you've got on there, like on the first.

roots and stuff. Like it works so well over a pedal, you know, even if you don't resolve, you're resolving the harmony, but you're not resolving the, man, the root, right? And then you can even combine it with some of these. You could go blue nine. You could go blue nine. Exactly. And then. And then. Go a little Fridgin. That's level two here. Oh, sorry. No, that's the next seven levels. Because I, we could do a whole other, here's how many dominant chords there are. We can do a whole other seven of these. Oh, I mean, it'd be like subset two is what you're saying. Dude. Come on, man. I know. Okay, I have one more level.

This is number seven. This is the one that's going to blow our minds. This is ridiculous. Okay, there we go. This is Bill's decadent diminished. You ready for this? Bill's decadent diminished. Check this out.

That one. This one. So this is the key of F actually. So do you know what this dominic chord is? No. It's an F diminished. Seven over the C. Yeah.

Nice. So he has G minor seven. Oh, that. I keep hearing that. How gorgeous. Yeah. How decadent. So here we have here, like if we're going key of C,

you could do like something like, C diminished seven. Which if you think about it, this makes total sense. We talk about not resolving to C, like, faking the resolution by going to like C diminished, right? So we talk about. But throwing it over the actual five now. Right, delaying the resolution, but doing it over the five also makes sense, which I've never thought about.

And this one works nicely too over. Gorgeous. It's gorgeous. But it works nicely too over a continued pedal point because you could be like, you know what I'm saying? Oh, that sounds so good. A bit of, uh. Love it, man. And then a little.

No, so this is what I'm saying with, with, what key were you in? It's key of G. So yeah, yeah. So like with what's new, instead of like some kind of D7, which is beautiful, you could do a G. D. D. D. D.

That's pretty. That's very pretty. That's the Roystroms. So whatever that was. That was a couple weeks ago. Oh, man. That's our seven levels of five seven chords. Let's throw that last one up again and go back to this.

Just make sure because this is the trickiest one. But the important thing about this, too, is to think about, like you've got, again, a B triad. What do you know about that? That's in there too. Which kind of slides up nicely to a C major. That's why it works. That's why it works. These are cool.

Yeah, so, yeah, they really are cool. The hardest one, I'm going to tell you what the hardest one is to make sound good. Bam, that one. The average Amadeus is what I'm saying, man. Yeah. Trying to make the average. I mean, you can play that. That helps.

No, but here's what I'm saying. So someone to listen to for on this, I think, is, um, is, Richard T. These dominant seventh chords that Richard pulls off on like still crazy after all these years. Like learning them in

these different inversions, in open voicings, enclosed voicings. So beautiful, man. Great stuff. Great stuff. Me likey, me likey. Gorgeous. So high five.

Let's go through them real quick. Just for fun. We'll do a quick review. Average. Amidamid. which is definitely the hardest one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right then.

Nice trill, Peter. Nice, nice trill. Was that a Morton or a trill? That's a Juilliard trained trill. All right. And then we got the high five. Yeah, yeah. That's the augmented fifth.

Sometimes seventh, sometimes not. Right. Yeah, that's right. And then we got diminishing return. This is just a nice flat nine sound. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then that, you know, a little bonus on these are those triads that we found.

E triad over G. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we got. Blue 9. A little Cousin Mary, little Blue Train. Yep. Then we got Kitchen Sink.

It's the altered scale, buddy. Then we got suss it up. Woo. Oh. A little high ridge. Suss it out. Don't be your high ridge. High Ridge.

Flooded. What? And then. I don't know what that means. High Ridge can't be flooded. It's high on a ridge. That's right. Yeah.

And then we've got Bill's Deccant diminished, right? Yeah, which is the most beautiful thing ever. Great stuff, man. Thank you for these, man. This was fun. It was fun. Thanks, everybody. That's the seven levels of five, seven chords.

Like I said, we could do a whole other seven of these because it gets, I left off the hipster cluster. I left off the old minor five. There's a bunch that we could talk about. There's so many. But this is a great. This is great. Now, folks, on the pod, as we say, the podcast, if you. go, what should they go to the YouTube version of this

to pick up the PDF? You can pick up the PDF on YouTube. It's also linked here in the podcast itself. You can have to go to YouTube. You can see it right here. You see it right here. Yeah, yeah. Well, good. Well, we want to thank Open Studio, as always, for sponsoring us, for housing us, for paying for the electricity, the lights, the microphones, the bandwidth, as we say.

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