It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
Minor 7th Chords - extensions are usually either naturals, or flats.
Major 7th Chords - extensions are usually naturals, or sharps.
Dominant 7th Chords - extensions can be naturals, flats, or sharps.
Obviously, as you will appreciate, things can get rapidly complicated with a chord having extensions like a flat 9, plus sharp 11 and flat 13. Ultimately, I think there are no fixed rules. It comes down to how a chord sequence sounds, when extended chords are used, which, of course, depends on your own tolerance/appreciation of dissonance within a piece of music.
Feedback
Band Stuff: https://navigationofficial.bandcamp.com/album/silhouette-ep
How do do I use them? Like @jalapeno, in rhythm playing I ignore them because they clutter the sound scape. There are exceptions, such as the final chord of the chorus in Moondance where the #5th adds picqancy. In lead playing I’ll often do the opposite, and focus on the altered notes.
Band Stuff: https://navigationofficial.bandcamp.com/album/silhouette-ep
If the dom 7 chord is not moving in a 5 to 1 way to the next chord, then it generally won't sound right with added altered notes, but a natural 9 or 13 will be OK.
In a minor V to I sequence, the V will very often sound good with an added b9 and/or b13.
Band Stuff: https://navigationofficial.bandcamp.com/album/silhouette-ep
Both the Lydian Dominant and Super Locrian scales are modes of the Melodic Minor scale, and you can think of these scales in terms of a transposed Melodic Minor -
i.e.:
- over a dom 7 moving in a V to I way to the next chord, you think Melodic Minor scale up a half step.
- over a dom 7 not moving in a V to I way the the next chord, you think Melodic Minor scale up a 5th.
I think that has now covered it, hope I haven't made it sound more complicated than it really is.
The good of investigating altered extensions, in my view, is to look at V I (or cycle of Vth resolutions) resolutions and try to work out how the altered extensions of the V chord resolve to the I chord.
The 3rd and b7th of the V chord resolve by a semitone to the I chord, whereas the root and 5th don't.
In contrast the b9 or #9 will add an extra semitone resolution when moving from the V to a I chord.
Another good example of how altered extensions function is in Kenny Burrell's Midnight Blue, which is a 16 bar blues in in Fm.
There is the following chord sequence in bars 9-12
G7#9b13, Caug7b9, Fm11, Bb9
Looking at G7#9b13 the 7th is F, the #9 is Bb, and the b13 Eb. If we add the major 3rd, B, and b9 (another altered note) Ab, then we have 5 of the notes from the Fm blues scale (in order Eb, F, Ab, Bb, , so these extensions have not been randomly plucked out of the air, but have been derived from the F blues scale, which of course makes perfect sense as this is a blues in Fm.
The Caug7b9, could also be regarded as a subbed C7 resolving to a i chord.
Band Stuff: https://navigationofficial.bandcamp.com/album/silhouette-ep
Band Stuff: https://navigationofficial.bandcamp.com/album/silhouette-ep
The caveat being that need to be careful that any extension you add doesn't clash badly with other instruments (unless I suppose you want that sound...), so if someone is playing a 9th, adding a b9th might not work very well.
Also sometimes the altered extension is part of the melody, so isn't really open for negotiation.
Band Stuff: https://navigationofficial.bandcamp.com/album/silhouette-ep
Some of these chord names are a direct result of a full band song arrangement being reduced to Piano-Vocal-Guitar staff for music publishing purposes. Chances are, no one instrument within the full band arrangement is playing the chord named on the PVG manuscript.
Band Stuff: https://navigationofficial.bandcamp.com/album/silhouette-ep
Band Stuff: https://navigationofficial.bandcamp.com/album/silhouette-ep
Feedback