You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Most Controversial Chord Movement

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

In this episode, Adam and Peter discuss what Adam has dubbed his most controversial chord movement. Unlock your FREE Open Studio trial to become a better player today.https://openstudiojazz.link/trial📸 Follow us on InstagramThings You Didn't Know About Dominant Chords

Hey, Peter. Hey, what's the most controversial thing you've ever said on like an open studio video? That my life is totally and utterly changed ever since I experienced totality yesterday. Wow, okay. Well, I only just said that an E7 resolves to a C, so you beat me. I'm Adam Maness. And I'm the new Peter Mart. You're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Jazz and the world, really the whole solar system.

Oh, boy, this guy. He's getting super cocky because he saw totality in the eclipse yesterday. And I didn't. Oh, you didn't? I thought everybody did. Oh, no. Caleb, did you?

Yeah, Caleb did. Son of a gun. Dude, we're like 50 miles from totality, man. Yeah, some of us had to work, Peter. You know what? You can catch it next time. Yeah, when I'm 70 years old. Great.

It'd be something to look forward to. Actually, I'm looking forward to that. That's going to be good. We're talking about the, some folks don't know we're talking about because this was like a North American event. Did you know that? I did know that. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We had a solar eclipse, ever heard of it yesterday. That's right. They came right through this region. 99, 100%, it's all the same. In the city of St. Louis, which is where I was, it was 99%.

But just a few dozen miles to the south and east, it was totality. But you know what's interesting, Adam C, I was tweaking you on this a little bit. No, but you did not wear glasses. So you didn't have the solar glasses. No. Which were available like literally everywhere on the street. Dude, Heather and I just sat outside on our computers. until it happened, and then we were like...

Right, the expectation of something... And we didn't get to say totality. We got to say, here's the peak. Right, right, right. Had you had glasses even, you would have been impressed. But next time. So, Peter, today we're talking about a controversy. So I made a short video the other day.

Hot take. A short video today, the other day, explaining some of Barry Harris' concepts on the family of dominance. And specifically around the diminished cord. And I made a claim. that an E dominant core, an E7, resolves nicely to see.

And I've been getting a lot of comments of like, admit it, that's not true. And that shapes me. That irks me. It irks me a little bit, too, because it is very much true in my experience. And I just wanted to kind of go over that. But I get, I do...

Episode over. No, I get why people would be saying that. You rarely would see, like, E7 to C. However, there are some voice leading principles here that might make you rethink using this sequence. Just because something is rarely seen doesn't mean it's not magnificent. It is magnificent.

And there are plenty of examples of this kind of harmonic movement, actually, in the history of music. But this all stems from Barry Harris' concept of the diminished chord being sort of the parent of four dominants. So, all right, let's put the cordy up here. Okay, great.

So let's talk about this diminished and the family of four dominants. So if we take this G-sharp diminished, which is how I started on this video. It's going to say A-flat there, but we'll consider that G-sharp, right? We can get four different dominant chords by just moving one of these notes at a time down a half-step. So if we move the G-sharp down to G, that's a G-dominic chord.

And what I propose in the video is this is a way that you can resolve to see because, of course, it's a 5-1. 5-1. Now, no one's going to be arguing with you on that. No, of course not. Except, well, no. Well, no, someone could. But if we go back to our G sharp,

and then we do the second note from the bottom, the B natural, we load that down to B-flat. Now, these are the four notes of a B-flat dominant chord, B-flat, D, F, and A-flat. Now, this is what you might call the backdoor resolution, right? No, well, you could, of course... Oh, sorry. Don't confuse the matter yet.

I thought I had to go there. We will get there. Then go to E-flat? So this is a way to resolve to C as well, right? A very common way. Stevie Wonder. Steaklin Morris. From the Detroit area.

From the ever heard of them. If we go back to the G sharp diminished and we do the third note from the bottom, the D down. Can we just show them? Sorry, just a... That's a backdoor two-five. Right, right.

That's B-flat 7. But B-flat 7 is a... Or just B-flat in general is a way to resolve to see a very common way, as is G. And by the way, the reason why is not for arbitrary reasons because it's a voice leading.

It happens, right? The A-flat that can go down to... Yeah. The G, you've got the B-flat that can go up to... a C, the D can move down to a D or up to the E. But you can easily, and the F, of course, resolves down to the E. So you can resolve each one of those tones of that B flat to the, sorry, we're all over each other here, but to the C.

Now, if we go back to our G sharp diminished and we lower. So you're saying, I'm sorry, one more question. If I'd interrupt you. You're saying that this, there's a certain totality to the resolution of that. That was worth it. That was definitely worth it. If we go back to the D sharp diminished and we take the third note from the bottom, the D natural, down to D-flat, that's down a half-step,

just like everything else we've done. We've got a D-flat 7, D-flat, F, A-flat, and C-flat. Of course, this is known as the tritone substitution. It shares a tritone with the G, right? And so is often used, especially in jazz, as a dominant chord leading to the C. Now, here's

where a lot of people were getting a little upset at me because I said, well, there's one more, and it's often slept on. We lower the F down to E. This is also a way. that you can resolve to see in E7, right? E, G, sharp, B, and D. It's a great way to resolve to C.

And this is where a lot of people said, well, if this resolves to see, anything can resolve to see, which, by the way, can be true as long as the voice leading is strong. Well, as long as it sounds like it's resolving. As long as it sounds like it's resolving. As long as there's tension and release.

Yeah. And what's the voicing? A little case here for this E7 resolving to see because don't sleep on this little resolution. So first of all, for those of you saying, like, well, if this resolves, you know, this doesn't, it's not a real resolution to C. So you're telling me that G sharp, B, D, and F is a great resolution to C.

That G sharp, obviously, it's a B diminished, right? But by changing one note to E now, this isn't, this doesn't resolve to C. Because couldn't you think about that just as an E7, E7 flat nine, resolving to it when it's the dimension. You could, you could. But just, if we take a look at this, every voice has a great place to go. So our G sharp wants to go down to the G, just like in the diminished. The B wants to go up to C, and the D wants to go up to E or down to C. And that E is an oblique motion, it stays the same.

Because we are going from four notes to three here. Now, if you wanted to do the Barry Harris thing and go to like a C6, now it's even more obvious. Exactly. The C6 adds that A into the mix. It's the same notes as an A minor 7. It's just one more resolution point. 100%. Yeah. And so I will give you that the E7 with the E in the base going to a C with a C in the base, that is, it's not like it's never happens, but it's more uncommon. However, it's a bridge further traveled.

It's a bridge farther away. But if you take like this voicing here, so this is, we've got B, G sharp, B, and E, right? So this is like an E7 with the B in the base. And we resolve it up to C, this open mixing. You can tell me that doesn't resolve. That resolves beautifully. There's so much. what we call chromatic gravity, right, where these notes want to move chromatically. Yeah. Or what about this, Peter? We've got E try it over D, right? So D in the base, E, G sharp, and C, all of these are pulling in a beautiful way towards C. Another great example, E7 with the G sharp in the base going to C over G.

Yeah. Right? So this chromatic movement is beautiful. And you can go to that A minor to the C and back. delayed resolution. Even E7 to C over E. Yeah. Ooh, I love that.

It is a great resolution. And, you know, frankly, if you put a couple of sub-dominance, that E7, even with the E in the base, I think nicely resolved to C. I mean, look, the proof is the pudding. Oh, we used to say the proof was in the pudding pops. We can't say that anymore.

One more thing that I want to point out, though, is that if we take a G-13, G-dominant, chord with the 13 and the flat 9. Right? Yes, it has an F, but if we just move that F up to a D, you could do an E7 shape over G. Yeah, like an E over G.

Like an E over G. And that's a very actually stevie wonder way to resolve. But it has all of those chromatic pulls to it. So it's not while it's not as common as like obviously G7 to C, or B flat 7 to C or even D flat 7. I admit, it's not nearly as common. It

has a similar pull because of that diminished, that G-sharp diminished triad, that's just a natural part of it. It wants to pull to that C. Yeah. I mean, it's just, to me, it's so obvious. And the fact that it wants to kind of keep going somewhere, to me, strength, that makes it not more transitional, it makes it more befitting of a dominant to resolution, tension release, tension. There's all different kinds of that. And it's not like it's that. This is not even by far. to me the most controversial sounding or obvious of a resolution. It's not like some, you know, once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse experience or something. This is something that commonly...

Oh, my God. Sorry. I'm just, you know... But I do actually have a practical example of this. One thing I was thinking about as you were playing, and this, I'm sure, theoretically, people could be like, that's not that either. That's even worse. But to me, this only strengthens it. The fact that you could go E7, up to the four,

And then to the five and then to the one that delayed resolution. That makes it even more like you're just skipping it over. And that connection also between the relative minor. Yeah. It's beautiful. Can I play a little example here where we might see this harmonic movement in action? Yes. I'm in totally great with that.

I've fallen love. Frank Sinatra, early Sinatra. I fall in love. Old blue eyes, as we call it. It's an amazing version of this. Keeps Tee I fall in love Too terribly hard

Keeps T For love to ever last My heart should be school Cause I've been food So good All right here it comes In the past and still I fall.

Right there, did you hear that? We're in the past, we're on a D minor. Yep. And we're heading to F. Yep. And what do we do here with the arrangement? E7 to C. And then to F.

See, that was the opposite of the one I moved up to the four to the one. Right, right. This is the five of the relative binder to the one to the four. Using that E7 is a secondary dominant to C. Yeah. Seven. Hell yeah.

B minor, E7, C. Isn't that beautiful? So using, boom, using that as a dominant chord heading to C. It's almost like they're using the totality of the available harmony to them at that point. Now, you can argue with my friend Adam Manus. I'm not going to be happy with that, but I'll let you do that. Do you want to argue with old blue eyes, though? You don't.

But listen, I mean, when you see this, right? And it's transitional, but it's very resolute as well, right? Yeah. So normally, if you were to do like a 2-5 to F, right, you would do G to C to F. But using this E-7, you still get this, that chromatic movement, right? Yeah. It's a great example, I think. And one of many where you can have that movement of a dominant chord from a major third.

Yeah. And I mean, you know, inner voice movement or just like, voice leading resolution trumps theoretical resolution. Yeah, if it sounds good, it works. Yeah, and that's what makes it sound good. Yeah. Or makes it sound unique. Or makes it sound tense or, you know, resolving, any of the different things that we want to do to affect the emotion.

Yeah. This is awesome, man. I play this stuff. I believe in this. I've never thought about like that. So that's what's fun. And I challenge everybody out there is like, think about theory not as like this, like, set of rules that you have to challenge others on, but a way of explaining our world. You know, it's almost like you look up into the sky.

Sorry, I'm not going to do it again. No, no, no, but it is. But what a cool thing. Don't encourage this. No, but on this serious, no, somewhat serious. Totally serious. We're thinking, no, it's like how do you look at the world? Like, we use science to explain the world, not the other.

We don't explain the world using science, right? Wait, say that again? Oh, no, we do. We use science to explain the world. We don't explain science. We don't make the world bend to science. We make science. Right. Science is a tool to explain what we see in the world.

Yes, and that's what theory is. Theory is a tool to explain what we hear on the records. Right. And so if there's something that doesn't work with our pre- not even our preconceived notions, but whatever system, which is what the musical theory is, like a system to explain musical phenomena. Like if something works in terms of sound,

in terms of like a sequence of sounds, we have to adjust the theory, at least to say it's an exception or it's another way to use that kind of resolution. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I totally enjoy this episode, my friend. Me too. I enjoyed it 99% of the way. I enjoyed it 100%. And until next time, you'll hear it. And you'll see it. I didn't. You'll experience it. I didn't even have the glasses. One minute was they agreed.