A NOTE FROM DICK GROVE

We are already to Christmas, December 1998! We now have an entire year of MUSIC NOTES available to you, and we hope that you have enjoyed our first year of articles and mini-lessons!  I hope that each ‘nook and cranny’ covered has added one more piece to the musical puzzle and that you are enlarging your appreciation of how all of this works!

We have just enjoyed our biggest two months of enrollments since we launched the ‘School Without Wall’s’ and it is very gratifying to get the opportunity to work with so many of you all over the world.

We also invite you to check out our new full page, 4-color ads that will begin to appear in January in both Keyboard Magazine and Guitar Player. If you feel like it, please give me a call as I would like to hear your impression of the ads - helps us a lot to hear some feedback.

Pleliminary plans are underway with my new dedicated Improvisation course (for all instruments) that should be available around the middle of 1999, and  hopefully sooner. There will be work books for treble clef (Concert), bass clef (Concert), Bb instruments and Eb instruments. It will feature CD’s of examples and plenty of play-along practice tracks featuring a great quintet with world-class players such as Jay Daversa on trumpet and Lanny Morgan on Alto Sax, plus rhythm section of course.

We have extended our sensational discounts until the end of the year. Check out our End of the Year Newsletter at: http://www.dickgrove.com/a4b Here is a timely way to not only get a great discount on course prices, but you also save off the price increase starting on January 1, 1999.


Enjoy -

Dick Grove

IImi7 and IV CHORDS IN CONTEMPORARY MUSIC
by Dick Grove

If we were to look at our contemporary musical styles in a very comprehensive manner, we would realize that in Western music, all harmony basically functions as either resting chords (I chords in major and I chords in minor) or active chords. The subject of active chords is a large one, as it includes mi7th, dom7, dim7, mi7(b5), +7th chords etc.

Regardless of this imposing number of chord types and forms, they all boil down to functioning in a key center as either resting or active. Active suggests that the impression the chord makes relative to a key, is that a resolution is required to follow the chord to a natural conclusion.

The two most common of these active chords, depending on the style, are the IV major chord and the IImi7 chord along of course, with the grand-daddy active chord, the dominant 7th, including all of its possible variations of altered tones (such as altered 9ths, 5ths, 11th and 13th) As the definitive tones included in the dominant chord tells your ear the momentary key center you are in, the thinking would be that the IImi7 and IV major chords that usually precede a dominant chord seem to be an additional active chord.

These two additional chords however, are really incomplete forms of the V7. In this context then, we can realistically consider all chords in progressions, to be either a form of a I resting chord or a V7 active chord.

What determines if a chord is active or resting is whether or not the chord includes resting scale degree tones or active scale degree tones. The most apparent active scale degree tones are the tones that move by a half-step in the major scale - i.e. the 7th degree (TI)  resolving to the octave (DO) and the 4th degree (FA) resolving to the 3rd degree (MI).

As DO and MI are resting tones (sounding final and not requiring a resolution), the use of the active leading tones identify and tell our ear that the harmony is active and some form of a V7. In more basic harmonic styles it is typical to find the IV - V - I progression while in more sophisticated styles the typical progression is the IImi7 - V7 - I chords. The IV triad or the IImi7 4-part chord both include the tonic of the scale, or DO. This tone is included but the 7th tone., TI, is not! The reason being that there is an unacceptable clash when you hear the TI or 7th tone placed below the tonic or DO. The use of the IV or IImi7 chords are therefore a way of using DO and avoiding the clash caused by the use of TI or 7th degree of the major scale.
 

It is also common to find the IV triad and IImi7 4-part chord used with the V7 chord (omitting the use of the 3rd of the V chord, or TI (7th degree of the scale). When written as a chord symbol, the chord is written” F/G or Dmi7/G. When seen in this way, it is obvious that the upper structure is the IV major triad in the key of C major, or the IImi7 in the key of C major. When played over the root G, you have created a G11th chord, but if played literally as written, the notes included in the chord symbol will omit the B of the G7 (the TI or 7th tone of the scale).

This particular sound is the ‘pop’ or contemporary version of the V chord, and makes an impression of a suspension caused by the use of the DO (tonic) and the absence of TI (7th degree).

The following example demonstrates these relationships”

Example 1

Try playing all of these examples and combinations in all keys. Listen to the sound, and realize that if you know your basic triads and 4-part minor 7th chords, that you have the ability to add the root of the V chord and create these V11 structures.

Good luck -

Dick Grove

WHAT IS IT AND HOW DOES IT WORK?

One of the more common jazz chord substitutions is called the tritone substitution. It is based on the interval of the tritone. A tritone means a distance of three whole steps.

The standard explanation to applying this substitution is to replace a dominant 7th chord with another dominant 7th chord whose root is a tritone away.

It is a radical key change as the number of accidentals in the key change total six - and six is the
number of half-steps found in the tritone interval. So it like suddenly changing key from ‘C’ to the key of ‘F#', or from the key of ‘F’ (one flat) to the key of ‘B’ (five sharps). This extreme chromatic modulation is very noticeable because of the number of accidentals and therefore adds a great deal of color to a chord progression.

We will now discuss how this type of substitution and key change is possible. To begin, we know that within a major scale there exists a tritone interval between the 4th and 7th degrees of the scale. So this unusual interval is a natural event, and not outside of normal, tonal music.

The next conclusion is that the two tones of the major scale that create this tritone interval are the
leading half-steps of the major scale (TI or the 7th degree which resolves upward to the tonic or DO and FA or the 4th degree, which resolves downward to the 3rd degree or MI of the scale). These two leading half-steps (TI and FA) are also the 3rd and 7th of the V dominant chord.

When our tritone substitution is applied, the new key center is created by the 3rd and 7th of the given dominant chord trade places. This means that the 3rd of the chord now functions as the b7th of the new dominant chord, and the b7th of the chord now will function as the 3rd of the new dominant chord. The same tone or pitch simply change their function in a tonality.When this happens, the root of the dominant chord changes to the tone a tritone or six half-steps away.

In our next example we will demonstrate how a G7 chord is substituted by a Db7.

Example 1

ITritone substitutions take the place of a dominant chord. They are not considered an ‘added’ chord
to a progression, but rather an option to the written dominant chord.

The effect of this substitution has two principle impressions. The first is that when the new root is heard, it brings chromatic color to the harmonic texture. It adds a bit of a ‘surprise’ to the immediate context of the music.

The second impression is that the form of the dominant chord is affected. In general, out of all of the possible combinations of 5th, 9ths, 11ths and 13ths possible on a dominant chord, they can be categorized as basically diatonic sounding or chromatically altered.

When the tritone substitution is applied, any given dominant chord that is diatonic will now sound
altered, and conversely, any altered form of dominant will now sound diatonic.

Example 2 will illustrate this change of harmonic character.

Example 2

In the application then of the tritone substitution (in its simplest procedure), you can play the normal dominant 7th form on the music or standard progression, and then change the root only and in effect create the tritone substitution.

A good exercise to familiarize yourself of all the tritone possibilities is to play dominant 7ths in all keys, then as you hold the chord, play the two roots (the root of the chord followed by the tone a tritone away

Hope you enjoy adding this nice change of chords to your playing and interpretation of songs.

Have fun

Dick Grove

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