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

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

Adam and Peter unpack why they think this chord is the most important chord in music.Check out Adam's video on Triads to Melt Faces below. Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

Yo Peter Yo, Adam What's up? What's up? Question. Yes. What's the most important chord? Now, go.

F. Quick. Oh. Major? Minor? F. That was a moo. They know what's going on.

I'm Adam Annis. And I'm Peter Martin. We've been arguing through the intro forever, buddy. That's right, man. Are we going off the rails? We've been off the wheels forever, man. Come on. This is fun.

This is the you'll hear a podcast. Music advice. I'm gonna ask you. Yeah. Rocked by Open Studio. I'm definitely off the rails today, buddy. I'm so sorry. This is fun.

You're just gonna have to deal. Yeah. Was that the moo you played? It sounded like a cluster chord or a cluster F. It's an open studio move. It's really with F on the bottom. This is really a D-flat moo. I should have probably played.

That's a move. They're both. It's the same shape. Take me to the yacht. I want my yacht. What's that one? It's the meow. Yeah.

Why is our cat sound like like we're turning a cat into gut sort? strings. Because I took 30 seconds and a YouTube cat sounds and that's what we got. Why is it killing a cat sound? It's like final cat sounds. Final cat sounds?

That's so dark, man. Oh, wow. That's what it sounds like. Oh, boy. Sorry. All right. Back on track.

Back on track. It's a podcast. We've got listeners here. That's right. Yeah. So this is fun because we have been having some fun the last couple days. And we're going to kind of not really do a recap, but talk about, I believe, a concept. that came up in a course that we were recording with,

none other than Aaron Parks. The Great Aaron Parks. The Great Aaron Parks, who was in the house at Open Studio these last two days doing a new course, which I believe we're going to call... Servicing the music. Servicing the music. Serving the music.

Like with legal papers. That is not a diminished cord. You are ordered to... Okay, if you're not on YouTube, you need to go on YouTube to see how... Cut that part out. Cut that part out. Serving the music.

Serving the music. Which I love the, I love the, are you in some legal problem right now? Is everything cool? I'm having a, I'm just in a loopy mood. You know you've been recording for a minute and you just get a little, everything just gets a little funny. Right. Did you have a funny cigarette out in the, out in the driveway before we started today? No, no, no.

Okay, so. Serving the music, but it was a beautiful. It's a great concept, too. It's amazing. And he's such a, like, a thoughtful musician. And this is coming from Aaron to serve, even though we talk about that too. Yeah, and he just talks, I mean, the whole course is designed to, sort of shake you out of just your habitual playing of things that you just sort of run your fingers

over. And he has all these amazing techniques to do it, like sort of rhythm technique of putting it in your body and the singing technique he has. And then on day two, Peter, he talked about his relationship with Barry Harris's teachings. He took some master classes with Barry when he was very young when he was like 14 or 15. And he talks, he goes through this whole story of how, you know, And then when he was a young musician in his early 20s, he sort of wanted to step away from that and do his own things, as most young musicians want to do. You want to sort of buck the system that you've just learned.

And then how, as he's gotten older and a little more wise, he's kind of come back to these things and seen their value and their importance. The functional harmony ideas, things that we love to talk about around here, there's no right or wrong with this. Both are valid. And both can lead to great music. They're just different stages of development. He shared a great Nietzsche quote about how these different stages

of artistic development are very common in artistic growth and probably almost inevitable in certain degrees. But it was a really lovely weekend with Aaron and he talked about this one Barry Harris concept

that I've been also talking about in some shorts and I thought we could talk about today. And the title of this is the most important chord question mark because it's a bit cheeky. It might be the most versatile chord.

As we do. I don't know if the most important chord would be this but we're talking about a diminished chord. And it's definitely one of the most useful chords that there is. It might be the most important chord. Are we restricting this to the fully diminished?

The fully diminished. And we're talking about a fully diminished seven. So half diminished need not apply. Well, hold your horses. Oh, sorry. Yeah. B, D, F, and A flat is where we're going to start. And this is a stack of minor thirds, of course.

Right. So this all comes from Barry Harris. This way of thinking about it. Not that Barry Harris invented this, but he certainly had a huge part in the ability to communicate this. And now, once you know these sounds, you can hear them anyway. So this diminished chord is very unsettled. It doesn't feel like it has a home.

It doesn't feel like it wants to stay here. But it does lead beautifully to a very important chord, a tonic. A C major here, right? Subtle much. This B diminished can lead beautifully into a C major. And that C major definitely feels like it wants to stay here. It is a grounded, warm place to live. The B diminished feels, you know, out of nowhere.

Composers use that chord as to create a feeling of uncertainty. Now, what I love to talk about with this is we're going to get into all the permutations of this B diminished, but it is important because it contains in it several, I think what, at least we're going to talk about 12 different chords that resolve to C major today from this one chord. There are 12 different. So let's start with the diminished itself.

So what this does, is this gives us voice leading going to a tonic. So our B naturally wants to lead to here. Our D can lead really either to C or to E, but C is very heavy. F certainly wants to lead to E, and A flat certainly wants to lead to G. And just to be clear, some people like, why is that certainly, because of the half step. That's more of a voice. I mean, you can, what do you call that?

Not voice lead. Leading tone. Leading tone. You can leading tone a whole step or even beyond that. But that half step is, especially when there's incommany, like, Yeah. And it's not, this is a certainty. It's not like this is the only way you can use it,

but this is certainly a common way to think about it. The only thing certain is death and taxes. It's 100%. But these half steps, they have a lot of, I like to think about it as weight. They have a lot of gravity that lead you towards places, right? So our B diminished here with the B on the bottom is a great way to get to a C with a C on the bottom.

But you can use different inversions, put Peter to sleep. I can tell. You look, these different inversions, so here I'm going to play some open chords. Different inversions, if we put the A flat, that also leads to C. An A flat diminished, A flat fully diminished, it leads to C. It sounds great because of that half-step movement to C with G in the bass. If we do an F diminished, which is the same notes as the B diminished, the different inversion, leads to C with E in the base.

And beautiful voice leading was had. And D also leads to C with C in the bass, could lead to E, C with E in the base. But as you're seeing here, each one of those diminished inversions leads to a very prominent C major chord in any of the inversions. And that's how a lot of composers and arrangers use it and how we can use it when we're playing piano.

It really gets a lot of cool sounds. So that's the first four chords that resolve to C, and they resolve to different C's with different inversions in the bass. And again, that's not a hard number. and fast rule either. A flat diminished can lead beautifully to a C major with C in the base. F diminished can lead to C with C with C in the base. It's not, it doesn't have to be, but those voice leading principles work in the base as well. So we're a third of the way there.

We're a third of the way there. My math is correct. But wait, there's more. If we take this top note A flat on this B diminished and we just drop it by a half step, now we have the notes of a G dominant seven chord. Now of course we know that's going to sound great going to C. never heard of it. Right. And it'll, all the inversions sound great. Pretty much the same as all the others. G7 to C over G7 to C.

Both work. But we know that. What if we took the F of this B diminished, and we dropped it a half step? That's an E dominant seven chord. Now, you might not think this, but all of the notes of E dominant seven resolved beautifully to see.

C major. Yeah. Of course they resolve beautifully to C's relative minor. That's the connection, right? Right? But they resolve beautifully to C major and do not sleep on this one

because there's some beautiful stuff to get with an E dominant seven going to C major. Yeah. Well, I think of the... Going to F. Yeah, going up to F, but then coming back down, you know. But the voice leading is very similar to the G7 and to the V diminished.

Yep. I'm doing all of these inversions can lead that E7 to C major. It sounds beautiful. And we go back to our B diminished. We drop our D to D flat seven. This is classic right here. It's called the tritone sub. But again, all these inversions can also lead to...

Don't try my tone sub. Don't try your tone sub. Beautiful. And then finally, if we go back to this B diminished, we drop the lowest note B down B flat. That's the back door right there. to C. And again, all inversions

lead to different parts of C, right? Different. Beautiful, right? And then not only that, but, you know, just as far, you can also think about this melodically, too. If you're playing a G7, any one of those dominant chords,

here's E dominant, that works, works as an extension, essentially over G7. B flat. D flat. Ah. they all work as like, you know, extensions to go to C.

But they also work as like melodic devices too. I think they're great. And the melodic uses devising is kind of the most interesting to me. So it's like 5 to 1 G7. That triadic pair kind of playing. Is that triadic pair? Yeah, totally. So B-flat-E.

And this is just not without even the seventh on them. Just triad. So B-flat, G, E. Was there one more? No, that was the three, right? There's four. B-flat, G, E, and D-flat. Oh, that's right.

They all work like that. Yeah. And then if you add in the seventh. There's a lot of times people like, oh, let me use the tritone substitution or this diva. Cool, but isn't it cool? Wouldn't you rather do this? And not...

Not only that, but you could do this harmonically as well, right? If you want to do, if you have, especially if you're a few you're playing solo piano or even if you're not, but you have a lot of time on a five chord and you're just trying to get back to C. Like try mixing and matching these. Check out with the root and everything. E7 to D-flat.

You know what I mean? They sound so good. And you'll hear arrangers, especially in some like Great American Songbook standard orchestra arrangements, a lot of this family of dominance that you'll hear. Brian Wilson. love this one

to the Beach Boys. B-flag sort of reverse back door but using the using them as like family's down and you can actually mix and match the diminished

and what we're about to talk about which is another version of this the next four chords of this family we're back to the B diminished and remember we just we just lowered each one of these tones by a half step we got those dominant chords

if we raise our A flat up a half step We have the notes of the D minor 6 shape. Also, it could be a B half-diminished, but Barry Harris would talk about this as a D-minor-6 shape. And remember when we lowered the A-flat, what do we lower it to? G7. It was a G7, and this D-minor-6 is very related to it. It's like a G-9.

Yeah. So it's very related to that. And so this, of course, this G-minor, or sorry, this D-minor 6, we can use to resolve, right? And all the inversions, just like we used all the inversions to resolve, you know, from the diminished and from the dominant,

it works the same way and beautiful voice leading. If we took the F up, B minor, 6. And these notes, while you would never think it, resolve gorgeously to C major.

They really do. I was telling Aaron Parks this, actually, I used to play in this band that would play a bunch of old dance band charts. Yeah. Like really old arrangements. And one arranger, I forget who it was, but he would always notate if we were like doing a 5-1 to C. He loved the chord G-major 7-flat-9.

And I was like, what the hell is this G-major 7-flat-9? It's a B-minor-6 over G. Part of the family. I love that. And I hate that when people are like, no, that's this. You know, it's like, no, that's the way he heard it and thought about it. It's part of that family. And the voice leading checks out.

The voice leading is legit. I love this B minor 6 to C. It's such an addictive sound when you get to it. Like look at this here in this inversion, the G sharp. All of these, I mean, imagine this over here. Does that sound like it's a major seven flatline? It sounds like a domino chord.

Especially when you resolve it. Is that cool? All those half steps working together. So that's with F lowered. If we look at the D in our B diminished lowered, sorry, raised. a flat minor six right and this is pretty obvious if you know any of barry's like six chords if you put this over a g it's a g7 flat nine flat 13 it's a flat minor six right from that

a flat melodic minor and it's got shades of d flat nine shades of d flat nine exactly so kind of related to that tritone sub sound and again all inversions go to could could easily seamlessly go to all inversions of c and then one more if we raise the B up to C, that's F minor six, which we know. You know, you put that over a G. Yeah, but the classic, right? So again, all inversions finished essentially, and that goes there. And so that's all from one chord, a very powerful little chord called the diminished.

Now, here's where magic can happen, Peter, is when you start working through this in different ways and you realize, just like you can mix and match all those dominance, you can actually mix and match. you can actually mix and match all of these. And like working through it, let's say we want to go from C major, we're eventually going to end up on C major over G. And maybe we want to use that A flat as a bass note. Maybe we do that B, that B minor six. But then you can start moving notes around to the other versions of this.

So then maybe we do B minor six to A flat minor six. And we start mixing. Or maybe we do B minor six to our B flat seven. over A flat. You know what I mean? We get all these beautiful... All this voice leading can happen just by moving notes around

or even just, you know, taking the diminish and practice moving one of these notes at a time, you know, this sort of sound of... So that's going, you know, this beat half to match, D minor, 6, flat to the diminished. And you can do that with each one of these notes. Like you can take the D up,

take the F up. Isn't that beautiful? You take more than one note and find these great voice leading opportunities. It's really endless. And I just did a short on this actually. All of this, what I just talked about, I crammed into one minute,

and I think it should be out by now, but it's called a lifetime of work in 60 seconds because it really is a lifetime. Because we're talking about one diminished chord here. I remember that one. You were speaking quite a clip. I mean, I've been talking on quite a clip right now. But it's, you know,

if this is a little bit over your head, just be patient with it. Like, just take, or just take one concept of it. Just take the diminish in all the inversions and practice your voice leading. Yeah. It's so handy for every situation to kind of understand where these things flow and to give you some ideas. Really, that's all it is. It's not, I always tell people like, this is not something that you're going to want to,

I'm going to memorize all of these chords in every key. And this is the order with which I'm going to use. And this is, it's a vocabre. Right. Like harmonic vocabulary? It's harmonic vocabulary. It's really just a jumping off point. start exploring.

Like what sounds good? Almost like conceptual vocabulary. Like it's a catalog, you know, expanding your repertoire of, it's really one concept. Yeah. But because it's so many different permutations once you understand the system. That's right. That it's really exciting for me. I mean, a lot of these I play, but not all of them.

Yeah. So it's got me thinking about, you know, just different options with it, which is that's what that's, you know, and a lot of people get caught up. I think when they, when they hear system because they're like, oh, but aren't you supposed to hear at first, this type of a system can really open up your ears because even ones that maybe don't resonate like that one, doesn't resonate to me as much in that situation. But I can hear other times that I'd want to use that.

And that's not a shape that I go to. So if I go through this in different keys with this system, I'm forcing my hands into something new, which is what it's supposed to be about. Like, are we only going to play the things that are comfortable to us, that are ergonomic because then we're, I mean, we might play some great stuff. And if we have a good, you know, repertoire of ideas, good things are going to happen. But we're not going to be expanding.

Yeah. We're not going to be growing. Yeah. So. And even if you're just, like you said, even you're just hearing this stuff. Oh, you know. You know, that's all, like, you don't need to geek out on the theory as much as I did here. Yeah.

That's for the application. It's for the, and it's really for trying to transmit it to other people, which is what, what I like to talk about. But, man, just trying to get the sounds of these. And even if you, like I said, start slow, just try to get one or one shape or one of these shapes in one key. And this world opens up. These chords are meant to sort of surround and envelop, you know, beautiful spaces.

Right. So we're going to any of these, you know, we can use that voice leading to help us get there. Yeah. Love it, man. Thank you. Thank you for laying this now so eloquently. Thank you, Barry Harris.

And tenderly. Thank you, Barry Harris. Thank you, Aaron Parks, for the great reminders. of why it's so important. Thank you to the diminished gods of the sky. Thank you to, well, it's thank you to nature, right, to make those diminished chords resonate. Thank you to mathematics. Well, I guess thanks to Isaac Newton. We're not to really go back and thank you, Albert Einstein. You know, a ton of people. Shout out. Shout out. Pathagoras, my man. Shout out to the Enlightenment. Shout out to the dark ages. You don't know the dark times.

How do you know the light times? Until next time. You'll hear it.