Ron Newman
It’s so beautifully arranged on the plate – you know someone’s fingers have been all over it. – Julia Child
And you’re about to get your fingers all over chord harmony.
This issue: the flavor tones of chords, developing a sense of the different flavors or colors that are available to be mixed in to chords. That is, each scale tone has its own function that’s consistent in any key, and these can be thrown in to a chord to alter the feeling of that chord in predictable ways.
It’s not only the scale tones used but how they’re spaced within the chord that change the chord’s sound, but over time your hands will more or less automatically reach for the different effects.
You will recall that in a previous newsletter I told you to learn the third and seventh of every major scale and play them together. I said that this was one of the two keys to improvisation.
We’re now going to begin applying it. I don’t expect you to have gotten the skill to a state of effortless mastery yet. It’s an exercise that should be kept on the back burner for a long time. Just allow yourself to play with it a little bit every day and forget about whether you’re making progress. We’re simmering that skill until it’s ready for full use.
But I can give you a foretaste (actually, I hate puns. They just keep creeping in) of how we’ll use 3 and 7 as a frame around which we can add various other flavor tones.
One and Five
The first two are so bland as to not really be worth calling “flavors”. They are 1 and 5 of the scale. Bland, but crucial. I need to explain this a little bit. The 5th scale tone very strongly wants to go to 1. This tendency is the basis of everything in Western music theory. It is very clear if you’ve ever listened to the end of a Beethoven Symphony. He loved to stomp between five and one several times, like…a…pile…driver…to…say…THE…VERY…END…IS…NOW…YES…IT…IS…RIGHT…NOW.
Essentially, all we’re doing in music is to set up this 5 to 1 relationship and then delay it. It’s one big tease. We meander around, foraging further and further from 5 using all kinds of tricks and techniques, all the while just postponing the inevitable, the resolution of 5 finally getting to go to where it really wants to go, to 1. This whole song and dance may take a couple of minutes for a country song or an hour for a symphony.
This 5 to 1 thing is made very clear in jazz because it’s cleverly exploited for all kinds of effects. That’s why jazz harmony is so very effective at teaching how music works in all styles.
Iif you add 5 and 1 to the 3 and 7 that we had before, you get chords like:
But don’t do that yet. The reason is that 5 and 1 are such pillars of music that you don’t really need to emphasize them. If you’re playing with a group you don’t need to play them at all, because the bass player is probably supplying the 1, and your ear will actually supply the missing 5. You’ll never miss it. That’s how integral it is. It’s implied in everything so strongly, like a ghost image, that your ear almost hears it though it’s not there.
On the other hand, if you’re a pianist you have five fingers available, the 5th scale tone is right there between 3 and 7, it adds some thickness to the chord, so why not use it? Think of it as cornstarch filler. Just know that it will be the first to be sacrificed when you need a free finger to play some other scale tone that’s more exotic or spicy.
We’re still leaving out the 1 because we’re relegating that to a separate bass line, whether grabbed by your left hand (pianists) or played by a bassist.
Chew on 1 and 5 for awhile. Next time I’ll show you six and nine, the set of scale tones next in line on the continuum that extends from from bland and foundational to spicy and exotic.
Ron
If you’re writing your own melodies from birth dates or other dates please share links to them on the YourSongCode Facebook Group.
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It’s free, no registration is required. Everything is on one page and the usage is self-explanatory.
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Ciao,
Ron
Ron Newman received a MME in Music Education and a MS in Computer Science from the University of North Texas, has film and commercial credits and openings for Willie Nelson and Tricia Clark as a member of the Great Northern Band. more…
Get custom-composed music from birth dates at www.yourSongCode.com.
