You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What Chords Work In A Minor Key?

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

Adam and Peter look into a topic that may seem easy to most. What chords can you play in a minor key? It may not be as simple as you think.And check THIS out!Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Instagram

You know, Adam. Yeah. I'm going to need you to lead on this podcast today. Okay. You know why? Why? Because, you know, we can talk about major, minor, diminished, augmented. Today we're going to talk about minor, but I'm more of a major guy.

You are very... Or kind of an augmented guy, too. You're bright. You're bright. I'm dull, so, yeah. We have fun. I'm Adam Anna's. And I'm Peter Mark.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Music advice coming at you. Now, for such a bright guy, you're looking out the window kind of pensively. Well, because I feel bad for that intro because actually I need you to lead on this because this is a little bit of a tricky area for me. I'm so glad to hear you say this. But it's for a lot of people. So this is so funny that we've just, that we've kind of stumbled upon something. Peter?

Okay, if you're not watching on YouTube, if you could see the joy in Adam's eye, he's come to life. Well, because I, you know, he's alive. I am alive because it's so. His eyes are glistening. It's something that every professional musician deals with, which, you know, he's alive. is playing a tune in a minor key. And if you ask five professional piano players, what do you mean by professional?

Whatever. Union numbers? Yeah, let's say Union Local 387. No, if you ask like five good players, what chords are available to you in a minor key, you may get five different answers. Right. Like diatonic chords in a minor key are something,

I guess maybe they talk about this in conservatories. You know, we both went to, you went to Juilliard, I went to the new school. We never dealt with any of this stuff. I know. We just played Wayne Shorter tunes a lot. We just played Handel a lot. But it is an interesting,

so like if we were playing softly as in a morning sunrise, Peter. Okay. And this is so interesting to me. So we'll talk about, what we're talking about today is... Can I play Juilliard style? Yeah.

It's a real tango. Yes, it's probably more tango than it should be. Yeah. No, if we were to play, a tune in a minor key, you're going to get varying answers about what are the diatonic chords available. And minor keys are very interesting. Even amongst classical harmony, it's not what is, the theory is not often in practice, because it's not very straightforward.

So if we just look at what a minor key is, it's related to a major key. It's the relative minor to a major key. So if we look at, let's, we'll keep it to white keys here, the key of C. So here's our C major. chord, right? Yeah. So the same key signature will be used for it. It's relative minor. Yeah. A minor. Okay, very straightforward. Well, that means if we have all of these chords in C major, diatonic seventh chords, then we must use all of the diatonic seventh chords for A minor. It's relative, right? Yeah. Okay, well, one problem is what's the five? I got some

relatives that play like that constantly. If we're in the key of A minor, then the five chord is what? E minor. E minor. Yeah. It's kind of a pop sound. It is a steely band. So it sounds good. Yeah. It sounds good.

But that's not often what you hear. You need for a true dominant chord, you need that E dominant 7 with the G sharp. Now this changes things. So classical theorists might say, well, okay, well, great. Well, now we have the harmonic minor. Harmony. Right? It's a scale that is A harmonic.

in the key of a harmonic it's a b c d e f instead of g naturally of g sharp it's the only difference yeah and what this does is gives us augmented segment now this gives us these chords peter that's a very particular so now we have this g sharp in here now we can actually have a true dominant relationship but this doesn't account for well if you're in the key of a minor surely we're going to run into this chord don't call me surely a c major it's its relative major it's its relative major Right. So you kind of need both of these keys. Now, then in jazz terms, could you then have with those, what you don't get is this. Barry Harris would be very mad because that's an A minor six. Right. Right. And that has an F sharp. This is based off of really a, you know, classically a melodic minor sound, right?

Ascending. Ascending melodic. Which is a very, it's actually a useful way to create melodies. If you look at something like beautiful, a tune like Beautiful Love, which we've been dealing with an Open Studio Pro. Yeah. So this is all natural minor on the melody. But check this out. That goes, in that little phrase, it goes up, ascending. Yeah. And then down, descending melodic minor.

So it is literally a true. Very rare in a jazzy tune. Right. But it actually is very useful for writing melodies that they change ascending and descending. Yeah. But harmonically, if we're just using the harmonic minor there, we're going to lose out on, you know, the, we have to change to this, to these, you know,

relative major very soon. So there's a great website that will link to its music theory website that I've been. From the Puget Sound. Puget Sound.edu. It's really, it's actually pretty good music theory, just very basic music theory stuff. But the author talks about, you know, these three different scales, the natural minor,

diatonic. AOLA. you're starting in a aeolian the harmonic minor right yeah and then the melodic minor

ascending and then descending is just natural aoleon and how if you look practically into how most minor

tunes are handled not just tunes but pieces in classical music they use this sort of combination of all three which is why it's so ambiguous

so when you ask the question what quality should a minor tonic be it can actually be one of about four things.

It can be straight up minor seven, like a Dorian sound or an AOLing sound. It can be minor major seven. Yep. Right?

For sure. Evocative of the harmonic minor scale. It can be with a major six, right? It can be straight up. Try it as well. But it could be with that

A minor six. All of these are actually valid choices depending on what the melody is doing. And there's no... In different sounds. And different sounds. More different.

than, you know, traditionally like alterations to a major sound like major seven, major nine, sharp 11. Right. I mean, these are all pretty particular kind of tonic sounds that you can be in, that you can play around with. So diatonically, you know, when we start adding in things, you know, from, it's really between the fifth and the tonic, right? Honestly, if you look at what practically players of, from many different genres might use, you have the entire chromatic scale between the fifth and the tonic.

Yeah. You have the F natural, which is the from the Aeolian. You have the F sharp from the melodic. You have the G natural from the AOLI. You have the G sharp from the harmonic. You know, so you have all of these. So that means that A minor could be this. It could be this. It could be this. It could be this. B minor 7, flat 5. You could also have B minor 7.

All of these kind of sound good. For the C major, of course, you just have a regular C major. but also these can sound good. These can work. The D minor is often what we'd consider the four chord, obviously. But, you know, sounds pretty dang good with that F sharp in there. Now the E, you can have sounds great. That natural minor, as does this.

Right. You can have an F major 7. You could also have an F sharp, half to finish. You can have a G major. Try it like a G dominant 7. You could also have a G sharp. diminished. Yeah.

Or have to finish. Like, these are things that we can all use depending on how we want to use the harmony. It's really fascinating. And it's not how I was taught. No, me either. You know, it was taught more based on, it's based on this one scale or just go for the pure melodic minor ascending sound. I think that's how most people are, like if you're coming from sort of Martin Levine

School of things. Yeah, a lot of people just when they talk, especially in the jazz context, the melodic minor scale. But there is no difference from a. descending it does not paint the whole picture now then someone like Barry Harris or Hank Jones will talk about it in terms of that six diminished scale which also has that chromaticism here but that again that doesn't that doesn't really incorporate a G into things which right limit now this is great stuff you laid it out beautifully what you didn't talk about much is the Dorian scale how do you see that fitting because I think a lot of jazz players jazz pianists

like if you were to say play a minor scale like especially over a 251 or something yeah they're gonna play if it wasn't a tonic situation or even if it was a tonic situation wouldn't you say Dorian would be the go-to that most people would think so here's another practical application of this thing yes when we're talking about mid-century jazz music or black American music

whatever you want to call this phenomenon that happened of modal music that started happening with Miles Davis and kind of blue and John Coltrane they're using Dorian as a thoree. You know, this is, that's a Dorian sound. And there's no doubt about it that this is a home key, right? That's the second degree of the key of C, right? So this is a real, that's what modal means is that we take this mode and we play through it.

But there's no doubt about it that practically that's now become its own thing. Right. So if you were to play softly, you know, the melody does not call for Dorian. It's got the A flat right there. So now, does this sound bad? But it's definitely a different area. I mean, it's evocative of like going somewhere. But if you were now knowing that what we know with modal jazz, if you were to switch it from some kind of minor six things to a G,

a C minor seven, a Dorian, just to the G7, that does not sound that bad. No, it sounds good. But it does, it does sound like you're kind of pushing. a certain narrative narrative in there which is like what the great thing about it is once you get that sound and kind of how it feels you can go to that it's a very you know obvious kind of a sound it's not appropriate all the time but it's not like it's so subtle that you would lose it or that the listener would lose it so those are all important things when we're practicing to

try them out and then when it does feel like it's forced to make you know make note of that it's just like With meditation, it's like, oh, other thoughts come. Like, I'll note that and laugh at that or, or catalog that or whatever. Because these very like, you know, it always becomes important when you want to really change the trajectory of, say, your solo, you know, an improvisation. It's like, how many devices do you have, not just licks, not just like, you know, whatever. Like, ideally, that's different every time. I mean, the reality is, yeah, you're going to play certain phrases or whatever. but you're not thinking on that micro of a level.

But there is a time when you want to like the story that you're telling, maybe you come around to the third chorus and it needs to open up. That could be something that your drummer plays. It's not even you triggering it necessarily. But for whatever the reason, the music needs to open up. So rhythmically, harmonically, melodically, and how we take those different elements, those are all choices that we have.

So the more options that we have, like when we think about the very imaginative players and ones that can really craft these incredible solos, a lot of times we think, oh, well, they just have such a great story in them. Well, yeah, maybe, but I find more, like, more musicians have incredible stories in them. It's more about, like, the execution.

So how many different, how do you execute? How many different possible ways to open things up harmonically do you have at your disposal? Yeah. And so this becomes one of those, like once you start to know what, like, that Dorian sound is and how that is different. Because although we don't know,

necessarily think of the melodic ascending in minor as like, well, I'm coming down, so I'm going to switch over to the minor seventh and minor six. No, but there are times where we do use that kind of duality within there to connect in this case with maybe like a two, five, one or whatever, to keep us out of, you know, a real modal Dorian sound, which is great too, but that's maybe not where we want to start. You know what I mean? But what does it sound like when we go to that? How is that different? How is that different from the, you know, that harmonic minor sound, which is not something, which is not something. we would normally be like, oh, yeah, soft is a morning to summarize. On the C minor, let's play. Well, no, not as a melodic device, but the harmonic minor is for harmony. Yeah. It's for building chords. Hence the name. And it can work pretty well for that stuff, but it has limitation.

Yeah, there was a user. I saw a reason it was just like major scales. We don't need to practice them because we never play them. I'm like, but you play parts of it. I saw that. Charles Cornell? Was that Charles one? Yeah.

And, um, I'm just that of that. I'm, well, maybe I just saw part of it. So maybe he turned things around later. But I think it does miss the point of like, Like, first of all, learning a scale of stuff is about technique and figuring. It's not about creating music. It's about having a foundation for whatever instrument you play in the different peculiarities of what the technical requirements of that instrument are.

It's to being able to, you are going to play parts of that major scale. And there's also a certain amount of ear training and underpinnings of the harmony and the music that you learn from that. But we digress because we ain't talking major. We're talking minor, my brother. I think we got it, man. the lesson really is is that, you know, I'm sure there's some

some more like qualified people to theorists to speak on this than us, but from a practical point of view, kind of a lot is on the table. It is. And it's good to know that it's not, it's good to kind of reduce your dogmatism

about this. Like you can get really far from just using the harmonic minor for harmony and the melodic minor for melody. Right. You can get really far with just using the melodic minor ascending as sort of your mode.

And you can get really far as using the natural miner. Don't sleep on an Aeolian. And like you were saying, if you really want a point of view, you can use the Dorian as its own thing. You just have to be aware of what you're doing. Right. And it just takes a little bit of experience. And that's for each of them.

But I think the Dorian, probably the way we were presenting this, has the biggest potential for being like a very different harmonic area, like a kind of demarcation point where it's like, whoa, we're going here. But you could jump in and out of it, too, though. It's not like all this stuff is very pliable. fun of this is practicing and getting these differences and then really because even like you know like it's all in like where are you starting with it are you leaning into like are you playing a line

it's like well hold on before we get too far can we just because I want people to put in the too far with with that we're almost done but I want people to put in the comments what how do you think about minor harmony yeah what do you use what's your go-to scale what is your go-to when you have if you're playing softly what are you doing yeah so um um You know, I think... This is what I'm saying. It's so fun. I don't know.

No, no, no. I mean, I would use all of them in a typical solo. I would, no, but I think that that means that they're all important. I mean, I guess I could go and listen back and be like, do I use one more than the other? That's very interesting. But no, major harmony is so defined. It's so easy to understand. It's like major scale or Lydia, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I do think that for this kind of a tune, because there's so many two-five-ones in it going back there, that the ascending melodic would be probably, if anything, would be a go-to. Alone together. Huh? Alone together. You know the tune? Yeah. But that's the same thing. A lot of...

So that whole area... Like, my go-to would be more of the melodic ascending, but not leaning into the major seventh that much unless I want to make a point with it. So it's like... The thing is, all the notes, those are all the same notes I'm choosing from that that are the same as the Dorian.

But as much as I'm not playing... I'm not playing any seventh. I'm doing more like six and that. Because I know as soon. There's another one. Minor 7 is appropriate there. I believe Monk plays minor 7. So at the beginning he doesn't play.

He plays no 7. Try it. Yeah. But the bass line goes down to the... Yeah. Because a lot of people play. But it's actually... So that's very much like a Dorian

because it's kind of... It's not D-flat major, but it's... There is that that's coming. Yeah. I know, man. It's very, very cool, isn't it? Yeah. That's good stuff.

We always think about like the pliability and the flexibility of dominant chords with different alterations and different like, you know, kind of, you know, inner tritones and things like that that can really, you know, that you can construct a lot of tension and stuff. But there's a lot, even in a tonic situation with the minor like we're seeing. Yeah. Yeah, all of those are fair play. And what about the minor four over the, you know, where you've got that. Now he's going for some advanced shit here. No, but that's like, you know, definitely part of it that you're going, especially on a ballet where you've got. some space for it, you know.

That's great stuff, man. Yeah. It literally tickles me to hear you be like, I don't know, because I feel the same way, because I'm like, I just, yeah. But let's it. Let's embrace that. Like, so, you know, I think this is a good breakdown. We want everyone thinking about it.

But then when you're in the moment, don't feel like you, this is, this is, this is, this. It doesn't really matter either. This is the esoteric thing. But if you learn it, you'll have those possibilities there. You'll have those tools in there. This is not going to be like, just like when you need a tool, if you're, if you're if you're going to unscrew a Phillips screw. you're going to look in your toolbox and it's like,

yeah, I need the Phillips tool. Yeah. The Philips screwdriver. There's no doubt. This is the right size. There's one tool for it. This is more of an area where you have a choice of four different tools. So look at that as a cool thing.

I just love it that there's still some things left in this art form that we've beat to death with pedagogy. Yeah. Where it's just like, we're in a minor key. What kind of minor should we play? I don't know. Let's figure it out. You know, like it is still. And everybody kind of has that feeling.

There's no right answer. It's great. Always be learning. A.B.L. Hashtag. All right. All right. So that leads us to something that there's definitely a tool in the tool belt.

I know where we're going on. I know what we're going on. The GLA. The GLA. The GLA. Added to it. We'll be glad that you adhered to it. Hashtag GLA?

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