You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Sus Chords

Episode Date: April 2, 2019

Peter and Adam return after yesterday's April Fool's prank with an episode all about suspended chords. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcast.Listen to Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage:" https://geo.itunes.apple.com/album/maiden-voyage/724649006?i=724649444&app=itunesToday's episode is sponsored by the Oxford American. The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Its award-winning annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download - a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk, John Cage, and John Cage. Visit https://www.oxfordamerican.org/yhi today for a special subscription discount!Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We're back. Why? How? I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily Jazz advice still coming at you. Always coming at you, bro.

Come on. We can't be held down. Not going to stop. We're an unstoppable force. You didn't buy any of that, did you? No, and we have nothing better to do. And we tried to be confident with it. Yeah.

I don't know. We probably didn't fool anybody. I don't know. I mean, can you please let us know because we have no. No, okay, first of all, happy April Fool's Day. Obviously, yeah, yeah. Obviously, that was, you know, we love doing the podcast. We're here to stay, and that was not the last podcast episode yesterday.

For those of you that are just joining the podcast for the first time today, you don't know what we're talking about. But we did a whole thing about how it was our final episode. What if someone tuned in yesterday for the first time? They would be so, like, what? Well, it was a pretty good episode. It was actually a great episode, yeah, yeah. But we had some talk around. Toot our own horn, but.

Yeah, exactly. Not our greatest, but it was good. It was solid. It was a solid beat. Well, that should have clue people off, like, that it wasn't like our greatest. I mean, you know, when we do go off, we're going to go out with a bag. Yeah. That was definitely going out with a whimper.

Come on. You're chill pretty? Are you kidding me? I know. But, I mean, we also, like, I don't know, we played it pretty chill, right? Yeah, totally. Yeah. But we did have some talk amongst the staff here about whether they're not, they would be like a cliff of listenership.

It just totally like, people are like, oh, it's done. Okay, cool. And then never even checking it. So maybe nobody's listening to this. That's okay, too. It's all good. All right, so what are we talking about today, back on our official? Well, today we're talking about the Oxford American.

The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Its award-winning annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download. It's a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Nina Simone, Thelonius Monk, John Cage, and John Coltrane. Visit oxfordamerican.org slash y-H-I-t Today. Can't say enough about the Oxford American. Right. And hopefully they're staying with us.

They didn't think we were falling off. But we had to include them in the farce. That's right. I believe their newest episode is just hitting newsstands, too. I heard. It's true. Like any day now. But you'll hear it listeners, go to that link that we just said,

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It's awesome. Pick one up at the airport too if you want. If you're a high roll of big baller. But, yeah, pick it up today. Well, today we have another speak pipe, and we have another speak pipe from one of our regular speak pipe users, Zoom from Vancouver. One of our regular and one of our best ever.

I mean, he always has great questions. Yeah. Normally we wouldn't revisit somebody as much as we do, but he brings a fire every time. I hear it is. Seven stars for him. Hey, guys. This is Zoom from Vancouver. Great podcast, as always.

I'm wondering if you guys could do an episode on suscords or suspended chords and concentrate on that. Talk about the different functions they can have. Talk about different ways to voice them. Talk about how to solo over them, some good examples. samples of tunes with suss chords that you like. And also maybe settle a little debate about whether or not you can use the third in a voicing of a suss cord. All right. Thanks so much.

And I hope I'll hear it. Yeah, we talked about this a little bit on an episode a couple weeks ago. It was part of an episode that included suss chords. So just to squash the debate right up front. Yes, the major third and the suss court sounds awesome. Oh, wait. I thought we were going to say no. Oh, minor third, though, no.

No minor third. No minor third. Or a passing note, but yeah. But a major third in a voicing? Yeah. Sounds great. Give them something. Ooh, I love that sound.

Yeah. And this one in particular, because you got, you know, all fours, perfect fourth, two perfect force, and a tritone, you know, augmented fourth. Yeah. Root, not root shell pretty like yesterday. Route, fourth, dominant seventh, major third. That sounds great. And, you know, for reference, go to the ultimate suscore tune, Maiden Voyage, Herbie Hancock's Man. And you'll hear that all over that.

Freddie Hubbard. Freddie Hubbard's all over the major third. Herbie's playing voicings with the major third. It's good stuff. Yeah, yeah. So I think that normally, now, I think we did discuss this at another time, too, that there is another sound, which is great, and it doesn't matter if you call it a minor.

It matters to a lot of people. We get a lot of emails. Well, I don't know, but in terms of like, the sound is, I love this sound. But that's a minor 11th. That's a minor 11. But you know what, if you call it a minor suss, who cares? I care.

Well, no, no, no, but if you play good, I guess so. But, you know, we're always saying, like, what you call it, yeah, it's better to kind of stick with the nomenclature that people will understand. But you know what? If when we see that minor, like a D minor 7, Suss 4, we know to play this. But if it says D minor 11 and like that's in a melody or that or some D minor 13. Yeah, yeah. Suss 4.

I mean, yeah, it's not entirely correct, but it is what it is, right? It is what it is. I guess to me, you know, the Suss 4 means that the 4 means that the 4. is in there. The third can also be in there. So if it's a D7, Suss 4, that's a D7 with enough sharp can be in there for sure. But the emphasis on the fourth in the chord

as a big part of it. I picture the composer wanting a little bit of ambiguity. You know, that sort of not major sound really, but it is, you know, part of that family. Yeah. So when I see minor Suss 4, I just think like, well, you just could have

is the seventh in there, then yes. Yeah. Is the ninth in there? Then yes. why didn't it just write a D minor 11? Right, right. So I think, yeah, and wouldn't you say that it's that tension between the third and the fourth? Yeah, it's that half-step tension. That's the important bit. That doesn't have that.

And it's normally, I mean, you can certainly play it around there, but it's that, it's that ninth, you know. And even that, you know. Hey, listen, and who am I to say what you want to do, how you notate your stuff? Yeah. Whatever. I actually don't care, but for me, there's a clearer way to say it. It sounds like you do care. I do care.

I don't know why. I shouldn't take such hard stances. You get a little little tension in your back there, buddy. No, no, no. But the point is like the whole thing of notation and what we call things is important in terms of communicating. Sure. And when you're communicating on the band stand,

as in the, you know, maybe you're playing an open vamp over D, kind of an esoteric thing where the, and this is a fun thing we've both done before, like trio or with instruments. That's what we do. That's right. What are you talking about?

No, like you'll say you're a van, camping over something and then we want to change the harmony. If we go like some, say it's like major and then we go to that minor thing, we're communicating that by what we play. That says something to the horn player, minor 11, whether they know it's minor 11 or call it a frosty, froggy or whatever. But we never, you can communicate through music. When we communicate through notation or saying things, it is important to have a common language.

I think so. Yeah. Well, back to the suscord. So, okay, so we know that we can include the major third. No. Oh, sorry. Come on. I was listening, man.

So, but he asks, you know, soloing strategy. over the suss. So first of all, the scale, and we talked about this before, too, the scale that you would use over a D-7-sus is actually just the D-dominant scale. It's the mixalidian sound. Right, right, right.

Special little emphasis on the fore, right? Yeah. So that's your basic shapes. And what's cool about the suss thing, like if you play like a D-7-sus for voicing, you know, yeah, so a lot of triadic sounds come out of that voicing alone.

C, G, you know, D again. all of that stuff for some reason it naturally just works really well over a sus-cord another thing that I always default to and this is again stolen straight from Maiden Voyage is if you play that D7S that you can

it doesn't say stay static on that G you know that sus 4 it goes both up and down right no you could do it you can do it got a lot happening over this is awkward trying to move this keyboard You got a phone up to that too. So, like, again, if you're on the C, you hear Herbie do this.

Yeah. You know, so this is like the sharp four. Yeah. But moving around here. And you've got the 13 in both of them, too. I think that's important. It's not necessary, but it's important part of that sound. So having that Lydian dominant sound, you know, you can signal that to the band.

Working around that four. So, you know, instead, like, typically, if it were a seven chord, You might work around that third. Right. You know, you can do something. But that's suss. Yeah. All of that.

And then, man, it sounds so good if you're on that. Yeah. And that's another kind of triad you're working in that E triad, basically, right? Well, it's more like an E augmented. Oh, right. Right? Because you have E flat, or sorry, E flat augmented, E flat and G and B. Mm-hmm.

G triad. Okay. You know? But then back to the suss. Yeah. So you're really working around, like, Here I'm on F7s. So, you know,

kind of E flat, major seven sound over F. Yep. And then you sharp that for. Yeah. Yeah, G triad works great. E flat. Even like melodically too.

Yeah, going between the E flat triad on an F7s and a G. It's almost like the flexibility that the suss gives you, you know, that sort of obvious tension points between the fourth and the third. Yeah. But that sharp four as well. But the sharp four too gives you another place to go. Now you've got three places to kind of shift around, especially a tune.

And he was asking about, you know, tunes. And the same one popped in my head, of course, made in voyage of being a great example of this. It's the classic. But you'll hear Freddie Hubbard, Herbie, like when they solo on it, and then many different versions. I'm thinking about the original version from the Bluna record using those triadic, you know, approaches, but also that Sharp 11 to the regular fourth to the major third. and playing around with that melodically. Yeah. Herbie does that too on one-finger snap.

You know, he plays around with that sharp-for sound on some of those. That's another good one for Susses. It's a great one for Susses. I was just thinking of another approach, and there's going to be many more we won't have time to cover today, but another important one for Suss. For me, has always been thinking about them as kind of minor Dorian from a fourth up. So like over a C, Suss 7 would be like a G minor 9 over C.

which you could say is a C-13. You see these spelled out like that sometimes G minor 9 over C. Yeah. And I like, I mean, there's not always

that I want to see spelled out like that but if the function of it is in terms of like the melody or how you're improvising or even how you're doing voicing fits, it is nice to put that

G minor 9 because that's a specific kind of thing It gets me thinking of F more than anything like I'm in the key of F. Yeah. You know, these are some F triads. But how do you go about that? like deciding in that case if you would put it as C-13 Suss 4 versus G minor 9 slash cord over C.

I think the melody always takes precedent. What's going on there? How I think about it melodically. But I lean towards Suss chords. I lean towards the simplest looking chord symbol. Got it. So I'll stay away from slash chords before I'll just put C-7 Suss. And I might not even put C-13 Suss unless I want to be that specific about it.

Right, right. So another cool thing. Here's some secret sauce that I like to use on Suss Cors. Oh, come on now. Get that duck sauce on that egg roll. Come on, man. These work great on 251, specifically on tritone substitution. So if we're in a 251 in G, you know, A minor 7, D7, G major 7.

Classic 25. You know, your tritone sub, of course, is A minor 7, A flat 7. There's a little Lydian dominant sound and then G major 7. Ah, but if you, if that tritone sub, A minor 7, you make it a suss. Ooh. Yeah. There's that because it's like a G flat major 7 over A flat, everything wants to resolve while the bass note goes down a half step. Everything else wants to go up.

So it's really like, like if you can find the right voicing, which I'm having a hard time here. I don't know what the massive key station for it. The freaking M audio is not fun. It does not spark joy. Like it gives you those slick. Again, even you can think about it as like E flat minor seven. Yeah. But you know what I think is great about that too is like that, you know, because the tritone sub is always a little bit of like a departure.

It has the same function in terms of the dominant and where you're coming from a half step up instead of 5-1, which is a very strong kind of resolution harmonic movement. But making it suss gives it like you're kind of going to another dimension for a quick minute. You're going a little further away than even a sub. And it's, it's, I mean, look, the suss sound is to me is such an optimistic sound. It is a dominant sound in that it's unresolved. but it has so much like just happiness and optimism. I mean, is that corny? No, it has a very optimistic sound.

And I just love the, I love, again, like that. It's modern. It's like a modernity. Is that a word? Yeah, it's like, it's a dominant chord, but it's not at all harsh. It's bright. It is. I love that sound.

Can I get the key station back? Because I got a little bonus way. Frickin gladly, man. Take it. Man, we are a well-oiled machine here. I was just going to add one little bonus way to you. sus chords. And this is the Adam Manus special.

I've seen him do it several times compositionally. So that's like if you're key of F, be key of anything. We're going to go down to the F major right, but no, we're going to go. Oh my God. This guy never quits.

I do one cheesy vamp one time. No, it's killing. I love it. I love it. So you're going down, instead of resolving on the one, you're going down a whole step. So you're at the dominant seventh as, you know, E flat as the root. And it's straight.

And this is definitely what I hear is like a B flat minor 7. Totally. B. B. that's really the harmony. You're borrowing from that minor four. But then when you go back to here, it's a very separate area, but it's a very easy resolution back. Because you never totally figure out, lose what that ton of, you think you would.

What? Man, you don't have to tell me. I overuse this thing all the time. Yeah. That's the Adam Man especial. Come on. Cool. Well, thanks everybody for joining us.

Thanks for coming back, Pete. I think we scared everybody appropriately yesterday. The last 23 hours and 40 minutes, we were lost, but now we're fine. This is great. Don't forget, for a limited time, you'll hear it listeners, can subscribe to the Oxford American for only 25 bucks. Visit Oxfordamerican.org.g. 4.sh.Y to subscribe today. Also, don't forget about you'll hear it.com. It's totally changed. I don't know if you knew that.

No, I know. I was integral to the change. We've incorporated our awesome blog, our ULewa blog, into the awesome podcast. So there's so much information over there about jazz, jazz piano, theory, harmony, all that stuff. Look up the articles. There's videos. There's also the podcast episodes, of course.

And leave us a message. It's totally TMI over there. It is. It's TMI. But we're rolling with it. Man, I'm proud of it. I think it looks good. It's some good stuff.

Yeah, yeah. Well, till tomorrow.