You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Four Misunderstood Chords (And How to Use Them) - #51

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

Today on You'll Hear It, Peter and Adam take some time to review a few commonly misunderstood chords in jazz. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter, what's up? Did you know that today we are recording the most important episode in the history of jazz podcast episodes that happened to be recorded in Grand Center in St. Louis, Missouri? Yes, I did. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And this is the You'll Hear at podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Finally coming at you.

We had some technical difficulties this morning. Yes. Then I had some technical difficulties with my jaw and mouth. Only five outtakes. That's okay. Who's counting? These spontaneous intros are hard to get spontaneous. I know people think that we plot all this out and they come back with these little witty asides.

Nobody thinks that. No, Oh, they don't. I'm sure it sounds like that to you guys, but there's a lot of work that goes into this. Too much work to go into it. All right, so it's not the most important. We might have just overstated that a little bit. Oh, you think?

Yeah. But I don't know, man. There's not a lot of jazz podcasts out there. So it very well could be. This could change someone's life. I mean, we hope so. We've been getting a lot of comments that people have actually been getting actionable advice from us, which I appreciate

that people listen, and, you know, it's getting us to step up our game to make sure that the action and the actionable advice is in the right direction. Yeah, I know. You know, we have this beautiful pod cave now with these beautiful new mics and the table, and we've got plenty of trail mix and coffee to go around. But,

you know what people really love is episodes at the old piano. Kranick and Bach to our two guests today. So we do have the Kranik and Bach available today, because we might need it. We're doing an episode on four misunderstood chords and how to use them. Now, if you're an advanced player,

this might be a little easy for you, or actually, you might learn something and be like, oh, I'm not as advanced as I thought. Because some of these things, I learned at an embarrassingly older age, you know, as I'm like already a professional musician, I'm like, oh, that's what that really means. You know what I mean?

Hey, ABL, hashtag ABL, always be learning. But this is actually good, because to talk about a little bit of the theory thing, like I think some people put way too much emphasis on chord and scale theory. I mean, you have to know the basics or whatever, but man, you don't have to like trip out over it because it really means nothing. No, you just have to be able to play it and to hear it. Right.

You don't know it and can't spell it or explain it. That doesn't actually matter. That's actually bonus there. And sometimes we get that twisted and think, oh, whoever can talk about it. But when you go to a gig, you're not talking about the chords. You're playing the chords. And I played with plenty of players that couldn't talk about the chords. chords they were playing and they were playing all the right stuff.

That's right. You know what I mean? That's right. But we are going to talk about a little bit of this stuff because these are chords that we get asked a lot about, we get emails about, and they seem to have kind of like a mysterious element to them. Maybe you know what they are, but maybe you don't know really how they're they work or what they're useful for. And so we're going to try to demystify some of these misunderstood chords.

I'm going to hopefully tell you the context when they're most often used. I don't want to say the context when you're most often used. when you use them because you can use anything anywhere. But these are kind of what these chords are designed for. So the first one is a very simple chord. This is a chord that, you know, I learned very early on, but I learned it the wrong way. This is the major six nine chord.

Major six nine. You know what? I learned it the wrong way too. So apparently someone, when I learned to someone said, the same educational system has failed us. Someone said, yeah, that's just the major seven chord. Right.

And it's not. It's not. It is not a major seven. It's not. But I think people confuse it because you can use a major, the same scales that you could use. use. But it's the same, it always goes back to this thing of like we're supposed to be using

these tools, not as theoretical concepts, but as tools to make music with, to make sounds with. And therefore, they're not for us and they're not for somebody writing a textbook about jazz. They're for listeners. So the difference between a C major six and kind of a bland version of it, but a major seven or major nine is not huge, but it is. It's significant. It's going to affect how.

the music sounds. Yeah. So a C major nine, just to break down the very, very basics of it, is based off the C major scale, off the Ionian scale, just like a C major seven, which is probably why... Would you call me? Oh, sorry. Which is probably why this person told me, you know, when I was 15 or whatever, oh, it's just a major seven. This person, should we name names? I'm not naming names, but it was a trombone player, so I'll say that. But it's, it's almost identical to the major seven, or a major nine chord, except that it doesn't really have the major. nine in any of the voicings, the major seven, or sorry, not the major nine. Yeah, right. It doesn't have the major seven in any of the voicings. That's not the strong tone.

Right. The strong tone on this chord is the root. Yeah. That's what it's for. It's for when the root is at the top of the melody. Yeah. Or the root is strong. You don't want to have this chord with this on top. Right. Right. You get that dreaded flat nine sound. You don't want the flat nine sound. Right. You want a clean sound. Right. And that's where this chord shines. So, you know, in C, if you're going to do the most basic version of a C major 9 chord. You have the root on bottom, the third to define it as a major. Yep. The 6-9. Yep. The 9.

The 5. Oh, yeah. Yep. And the root on top. You know, the very first chord for like on Green Dolphin Street. Yes. So if you're playing Green Dolphin Street and you play a major 7... Oh, oh, get off the stage, buddy.

Please get off the stage. That's not correct in that. It's not incorrect, but it's not great. Right. It's not the strongest version of that cord. And again, it's not because of you're violating a rule of numbers, 6, 9, 7, and all that kind of thing, is because it sounds funky.

Sounds funky. And it's not even because it sounds like it's got some hostility in it, because sometimes we want that hostility. Sure. But not at the beginning of on Green Dolph Street, where it's very much, like we're moving into the dramatic, you know, areas of the harmony and the form later in the tune. So if you start with a kind of dramatic,

I mean, not that it's the most dramatic sound, but it's a little bit clashing. Clashing is great, but it has to be within the function of the tune, the architecture, especially on standard tunes and stuff. There's got to be a reason for it, or else the listener is just like, I hate jazz. You have to have intention with the clashing. It can't just because you don't know how it works. Yeah, right, right.

And you know what's cool about the major six-nine chord is that once you kind of understand its power and its use, it becomes a very hip chord. What might seem like kind of a bland chord because there's no major seven or anything, it's very powerful. Like at the end of cadences, most standards end on the tonic. And so if you're ending on the tonic, you want to use this chord.

And then you can also apply it to other, you know, as a pianist, these voicings can be very handy for a Dorian sound. You know, when you don't want to add the ninth to a Dorian, you can use the 6-9 chord from the, you know,

relative major. It sounds great. Like, there's a bunch of uses for this. Good stuff. Yeah, yeah. All right. What's our next one? So next is...

Now that we've mastered the 6-9. We mastered the 6-9. The next is the Suss 7 chord. Okay. So this is, you know, famous chord by Suss 7, we don't mean we suspend the seventh. It's usually a suspended fourth, but it's the seventh chord. So this would be like C7, parentheses, Suss 4. C7 parentheses Suss 4.

Although the four is often left off, I usually try to put that. But right, if it's C7 Suss or C-Sus 7, the implication is that it's C-7, C-domin 7 with a suspended fourth. With the suspended, the third is suspended to the fourth. So if you have like a C7 chord, you just move that third up. Yep. Yep, like that. This can also, this gets rewritten too as like B-flat major 7 over C. Yeah, or G minor 9 or G minor 7 over C.

Yeah, or like, yeah, exactly, like G minor 9 over C. I like it. I like writing it like that. It's a little bit different sound. It's a different sound. Or function. You put something in the player's head, right? That's G minor 9.

You get all those G minor 9 things. And you could move around to like, you know. Doing, yeah, some G minor 9 kind of harmonic movements. That's a great point. But the essence of this chord, though, and this is where I think it gets confused, you know, unless it's marked like C minor sus-for, some people treat this as a minor. I know. They get all modal on it.

They get all minor modal. This is a dominant chord. This is a. this is a mixolydian scale, C-Mixilidian scale, so the C-dominant scale, and there just happens to be a fourth as the prominent note

instead of the third, but that third is still in the scale. Yeah, well, I think isn't the best example of this that I'm thinking of is Maiden Voyage? Almost every chord, and the implication, and if you hear the way they solo, even before they start solo,

and highlighting those thirds, maybe a little bit in a passing way, but it's always a major third. I mean, it's clearly... But man, I actually love the sound of that third and fourth together. Yeah. You know.

Yeah. And that's the true suspended fourth. Actually, the other thing, that's the reason I like to call it a G minor seven or B flat major seven over C when it's more of a pedal point that it's a five chord, going in and out of some things

that's eventually going to resolve to a separate one. This resolves to itself. That's right. And to me, that way of spelling it, again, it's all about the sound, but that kind of better explains it. You're basically putting a two chord over the dominant chord, right?

So if we're in C, you know, and that's a C7, you're putting that G minor sound implied over, even though it's a C in the bass, over that thing. So you're giving that basically seventh to third movement that you get in a two-five. Right. You can have that. And maybe a kind of vague rule on this could be like,

you know, you call it suspend. And I'm definitely going to get in trouble with the jazz. I might get in trouble with the university jazz police. Don't worry about any kind of theory heads. I mean, and this episode is inevitable. for some emails, but whatever. Good, bring it, bring it, yo. No, but that you, we're calling it a C7 SUS for C S7

when the tonic, at least during that period, is really C, whereas we're calling it a G minor seven or B flat major seven over C when the tonic is actually F major, whether it goes there or not. Like that could be a good sort of demarcation point. You could demarc it, but demarcate it, demarcate it that way for sure. But you could also, yeah, exactly. So if it's, if it's just, uh,

C-7-sus, you know, these chords tend to get used, like in Maiden Voyage, in kind of a modal way. You know what I mean? There was that whole era where that's what, like, everybody was doing. Would you be referring to the modal jazz period? The oft-mentioned? But, and still goes on the day.

It's a great, it's a sort of, without the third in there, it's an ambiguous sound, you know, and so you get these airy sounds. So, but it's not a minor chord. No, it is not a minor chord. It's a dominant chord. Although, so occasionally we do see, I know that this is not on the official agenda, but we're going to Excuse me, I'm a little hungry here.

I have some trail mix. Is that allowed? No, that's cool, bro. I mean, yeah, this is your time. Is this on your keto? It is not on my keto diet. Got a little hungry, not a lot. Okay.

No, the minor, I don't know if that's official, but occasionally you'll see that. You'll see C minor seven, but to me that's a minor 11. That's just a minor 11 cord. That's why I feel too. But maybe they just don't want the minor third in there, but C7 suss or any seven suss, that is for sure a dominant chord on most people's brains. Yeah, yeah. I think.

All right, let's move on. So that, now that we've mastered, those two, let's go to the altered. Ah, the altered. Yeah. I remember once being young and someone asked like, hey, do you know what notes to play on an altered chord? And I was like, yeah. Of course I do. Right, right.

I didn't. Yeah, I really don't understand this for a long time, too, because, well, I think it's not explained correctly because a lot of other people don't know. No one knows it until you get to like a more advanced level. Yeah. And actually, I'm not a huge fan of, well, I don't even know. Maybe I don't know it correctly. I see the altered, we talk about scales of chords.

I can't remember now. I mean, this is misunderstood chords. Right. So I see that as sharp 9, flat 13, sharp 11, a sharp 9. I said sharp 9 already. It's basically any extensions that can be altered or altered. But all of them, I always think of it as like all of them. Like you shouldn't call it like if you want a C7, sharp 9 flat 9 or C13.

Yeah. That's not altered, but with a sharp 9, you know. Like that kind of sound That's not altered Yeah some people's like Oh it's any combination It's got to be all of them The flat 13 the sharp 11

The flat 9 And the sharp 9 Because there is a corresponding scale It's the altered scale And all of those things The 9th is both flatted and sharp Yeah The 11th is sharp

And the 13th is flatted And of course you have the dominant 7 And the minor third Yeah and I'm like otherwise Sorry the major third Yeah I think it's just important When you're writing something out Or playing something that you

Describe it as accurately as possible and that's the sort of sound. I mean, not that you can't play at the routine and all those different kind of things, but in terms of the tonality of it, it's a very specific thing. So I know you don't like to think of it like this. You have a very specific way to think about the algorithm scale, but for me, when I was, when I really started to understand it, it was unlocked because of melodic minor harmony.

Yeah. So it's the melodic minor scale, a half step up. No, it's not that I don't like to think about it. I just didn't learn it like that. So it's not, I'm so much into scales, upon the root of what the chord is. Totally, yeah, yeah. But I love that correlation,

and I think that's why it's such a specific sound and why I hear it because of that melodic minor, that's like, I guess technically the ascending melodic minor, because that sound was so ingrained in me that I always hear that sound, and that's why I'm just like, no, don't change the altered chord because if you're using that kind of sound, it's fine, there's other things you can do.

Yeah. But one other way I do think about that scale, though, not necessarily melodic minor, but is as a half hole diminished. up until there. That's right. And then the whole tone. That's actually kind of how I learned. Like half whole tone, half half whole. Exactly.

And that would rack my brain at this point. Because I'm so ingrained in this melodic minor. Yeah, yeah. I could see that and I could see how that would really make it click. Yeah. But it's so funny when you, the way you learn these things, like affects how you view it for life. But yeah.

So again, just to break it down a little bit, this is like a C7 altered. You would play a C-altered scale, which is a D-flat melodic minor. Yeah. So if we just play the D-flat melodic minor, it sounds like this. Right, that's a minor three and a natural seven. Yes.

So starting on C with those same notes, it sounds like this. Yeah. You know, very, very tense scale. Yeah. Meant to resolve to any kind of chord. These are especially effective two minor chords. Exactly. And that's where we often see them.

Yeah. And then, but you can certainly use it going to a major if you want it to be a little bit of a surprise to or. Yeah. But because it has. has that and that, you know, the tritone kind of going, it really works like so if we're C7 altered to like an F minor, that's where I think you would mostly play it. Yeah, and I mean places where it's often used incorrectly

is when you don't have the altar ninth or the 13th or the raised fifth or whatever in the melody or what somebody's playing. Right. And then you're getting a clash on a, and some people will be like, oh, good, that's double clash. It's like, no, it's already built into it. Just play that.

because, like, say, this. Yeah, yeah. You reached down to play a C for me? We can't actually both reach the... So that has a lot of tension, but it's a different kind of tension. Yeah, that's of what... Flat 9-sharp 11.

Yeah, with a 13. Common voicing and a common tense, but that, you know, with all of these alterations... It's going to more go to major, probably to major because it has that A in there, A-natural. But with all of these, man, the more tense they get,

the more you have to be aware of the melody. Yeah. And if you're a comper behind, you know, a soloist, you really shouldn't be dictating that as much as what you're hearing them do. If you hear them go altered, you go altered. But if they're playing a mixillidian scale, try not to like step on them with a bunch of officers. It's like what Michelle Obama said. When they go high, we go low. Oh, wait, no, it's the opposite.

No, when they go high, we go high with them. All right. So our last one, the fourth misunderstood chord and how we can use it. These are, this is a pretty big, broad topic. but these are slash chords. So these are chords that you would typically hear since it's around Halloween time now in a slasher movie, right?

No, no, no. Different kind. I mean, this is any chord. You kind of alluded to it when we were talking about the seven sus chords. Yeah. That you can spell any chord, especially chords with lots of extensions.

Sometimes they're just easier or they are easier to communicate or just simpler to spell out as a slash chord. Yeah. Now a slash chord is usually spelled with or is always spelled with a chord is the first thing. So if we're saying B flat over C, then the C, the second note, is not a chord at all. It's just one note.

It's just the base. Have you ever seen these? What's your feelings on when it's like C7 plus 5 over B major 7? I'm like, what are you doing? Pick a chord. There's a way to spell. That to me is more confusing because the point of writing out these chords is to make it simpler. Simpler.

And explain the sound. It's to communicate the sound. If you're making me do all that, that's weird. I get it. Sometimes you have to do stuff like that, but like in general, you don't have to. So again, so the first letter over like, if it's like G minor 9 over C, that's an actual chord. That's the core. That's going to tell you what scale you're going to pick.

The second letter is just the base note. And that's the most important part is the fact that the chord is the first part. Like that's what I want everybody, I think we want everyone to understand. The second part is, although it may be the tonic, it might be the tonic, it could be a lot of different things. Yeah. And, you know, certainly the one I showed first is one of the simpler ones. But the chord is always what the chord is. The chord is, and this is actually a way that a lot of like, especially modern jazz composers, get to some really weird sounds.

Like you could do like a, like, a, like, you could do like an F major 7, sharp 11 over a F sharp. I've seen that, yeah, which sounds like this. Yeah. F sharp is not in F major 7 sharp 11, but when you put it in the bass, now you're running a whole scale over a whole bass note that is completely clashing. And it's an easy way to spell that. How would you spell it if it was just an F sharp chord? No, it would be ridiculous. You could do it, but it wouldn't be actually representing the function of what's...

Because really this, yeah, that's clashes and sounds crazy. But if you put it as part of a progression... Exactly. So you're just pedaling with that F sharp and your other... And that's where you would see it a lot. You know, you would see it maybe move the whole thing as a sound. But as an improviser, just know that that first chord you see, that's what you're using. With the bass as like a consideration.

Yeah, and this is an oversimplification. But in general, if you're a bass player, ignore the first part and just look at the second. And if you're a horn player, just look at the first part, ignore the second part. Until you really master how these sounds come about, that's your hack. And the way you master is sit down to the piano and play it. You know, I mean, we have an advantage, obviously, it's pianists, but everyone can learn these chords and then you get the sound. And then you can incorporate it into your improvising. And for bass players, you know, as you learn the upper structure of the actual chord in harmony,

you can, of course, incorporate that into not just playing the pedal point. Absolutely. Great advice. We mastered it. Hells, yeah. So, you know what? Actually, if anybody has any suggestions for chords that you really don't understand or even concepts, you know, when we're sitting here in the pod cave, we've got access to the Kranican Bach. It's a little awkward.

Maybe we can, we're working on it. Well, we can move the table around the experiment. But we're happy to kind of go through these. I think it's a good thing to sort of check. And, you know, if we did anything wrong, I'm sure we'll hear from you. Yeah. And you'll hear it.