9th,11th,13th chords

Harmony & Theory
#8

As stated by everyone else, the 5th is the first to go. I’ll kill the root note next. After that I think anything goes, you just gotta decide what’s important to you in that moment.

For me it ultimately depends on what’s happening in the melody, bassline and the general context of the chord. If I’m playing a jazz head with a Cmaj#11 chord but the #11 is already in the melody, then I’ll likely skip it in the chord.

There’s a great video of Herbie Hancock where he says that he felt stuck and bored by his playing and Mile Davis told him “don’t play the butter notes” which forced Herbie to think about what the “butter” notes of a chord were (he decided they were the 3rd and 7th tones, the ones we consider essential!) and it completely changed his views on harmony and his playing. So sometimes you gotta break the rules of what “works” and just try a bunch of other shit and see what works.

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#9

My understanding is, even though the 2 and 9 are the same note, the two is contained in the bounds of the chord (between the 1 and 7) while the 9 is on top of it. This is why it’s not just called a 2. You don’t necessarily have to remove one of the chord tones to play a tension although it might sound better and/or be easier to play

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#10

Regarding the Herbie thing, yeah sometimes we just get bored with what’s obvious, and want to push ourselves and the listener.

Related, here’s a short pdf I made for my students with some (imo) important considerations for getting started with comping for jazz standards and some of the common variables: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-944yuSdDVBTeWrM1uhziscE0nnOZtDz

An excerpt:

Some considerations about being ‘obvious’

  1. Clearly playing the root notes helps establish exactly what the chord is. Maybe you want to do this because you want the sound, and the harmony, to be very clear. Maybe you want the people you are playing with to be very aware of which chord you are playing, so they know where you are in the form. Maybe you don’t want to sound as ‘obvious’ and want to trust that either the other players, or the audience, or both, don’t need such strong indications of the harmony, and can enjoy a looser interpretation of the chords
  2. Similar things can be said of other issues. For example, if there is no bass player, you can fulfill that role and play low notes. Or you can leave the low register ‘blank’ and not feel the need to create a clear bass line. This is acceptable, it may simply be asking more of your audience, or of the people you are playing with.
  3. There’s nothing wrong with ‘comping’ with ‘single note’ chords
  4. Similar to #3, depending on context, you may need to include less and less information about the original chord. If the people you are playing with know the tune very well, and everybody involved has a strong sense of the form of the tune and is keeping the same sense of time, we do not necessarily need to spell the harmony out in obvious ways. For example, depending on context, simply playing the 9th and 6th together of a minor seventh chord can be enough to support that chord even though your voicing has none of the original notes of the m7. This is the kind of thing that makes more sense the more you play with people, and will be more or less applicable depending on the style of comping you prefer, or that you feel supports the soloist best in that context
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#11

I think its called the 9 because the chords are built in thirds (1 3 5 7 9 11 13), so even though the 2nd note its just right next the root if you count every 3 notes it ends up being the 9. you don’t have to play it above the octave though.
There’s this master class that kurt rosenwinkel made, and he basically keeps the root with the 3rd and builds from there and then he does the same with the 5 and 7 (of course he uses this for chord melody stuff but it is useful as a template for making other voicing just add the other degrees)

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#12

My favorite part about that story is that Hancock later came to believe that when he thought Miles had said “butter notes”, Miles had actually said “bottom notes”. This is one of those cases of a mistake/misunderstanding or happy accident leading to a really cool yet unexpected result. Not everybody would have taken the heard advice “don’t play the butter notes” in the cool direction Hancock did, but Hancock almost certainly took it somewhere cooler than he could have taken “don’t play the bottom notes”. A true “chocolate and peanut butter” moment. :smiley:

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#13

Interesting story. Glad someone investigated and got to the butter of that.

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#14

Second degree is 2th without 7th (sus2) 2th become 9th with 7th.
By the way,6th is substitution for 7th.

and there is story about butter notes :slight_smile:

#15

for whatever it’s worth, I always thought this naming system was most logical, assuming a C root to make it easier to write:

1 2 5: Csus2
1 4 5: Csus4

1 2 3 5: Cadd9 or Cadd2

1 3 4 5: Cadd4

And then if we have a seventh, the 2s are 9s, the 4s are 11s.

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#16

Cadd2
1 2 3 5 7 - Cadd9

#17

The presence of the seventh makes it Cmaj9, not Cadd9.

Cadd9 is triad plus 9th or triad plus 2. Cmaj9 implies 7th. Whether you spell it 1 2 3 5 7 or 1 3 5 7 9, chord name is the same.

At least, I’m referring to terminology as it applies to jazz lead sheets. But Cadd9 has no 7th, nor does Cadd2.

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#18

To everything above, I would also suggest this : take any 4 note 7th voicing you know and substitute 9(and alterations) for 1, 11th(or #11) for 3rd or 5th if you wish for 3rd to be included, and 13th(or b13) for 5th. This is how arrangers produce extended harmony when writing for 4 part sections-and it works great on guitar.

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#19

I Agree, this is a great next step after becoming very familiar with seventh chords

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#20

One more question,it is true that diminished chords
solves on chord by half tone higher?
B dim. go to Cmaj?

But diminished chord do not have inversion,only four root positions.
So,if diminished chords B solve on chord by half tone higher Cmaj
D dim. go to D#maj
F dim. go to F#maj
and G# dim. go to Amaj?

#21

In major scale harmony, the vii chord is a diminished triad, or a m7b5 chord (1, b3, b5, b7) as a seventh chord. There are other places where those chords occur. For example, the vi and vii chords of melodic minor harmony.

You’re confusing diminished triads with diminished 7th chords (1, b3, b5, bb7). Dim 7th chords contain consecutive minor 3rd intervals and therefore have inversions that themselves can be root chords (e.g., Bdim7, Ddim7, Fdim7, G#dim7 are enharmonically inversions of each other).

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#22

I am aware of the difference between diminished and half diminished chord
but I still do not understand where diminished chord follows?

Chord B dim.(b d f g#) is resolving on which chord? Cmaj?

D dim. ,F dim.,and G# dim. where they are going?

#23

Bdim7 is enharmonic equivalent of Ddim7, Fdim7, and G#dim7.

You’re right that Bdim7 can resolve up to C or Cm, that’s a resolution up a half step, but it’s true for the other three roots/inversions/names as well:

Ddim7 can resolve up to Eb or Ebm

Fdim7 can resolve up to Gb or Gbm

G#dim7 can resolve up to A or Am

But since all of those four chords are actually the same, then:
Bdim7, Ddim7, Fdim7, or G#dim7 can ALL resolve to C, Cm, Eb, Ebm, Gb, Gbm, A, or Am.

The same previous sentence would be true if you transposed all 12 chord names up a half step, same relationships, and still true if you transposed up another half step. But if you transpose up three half steps, you actually just get the same group of chords.

It’s worth noting that diminished seventh chords can resolve in other ways too. For example, this progression in C:

Em7 D#dim7 Dm7 G7 Cdim7 Cmaj7, same duration on each chord.

In this case, the diminished seventh chords are not resolving in the same way.

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#24

Another thing about the “four dim 7 chords in one” in harmonic minor is that when doing the stacked 3rds thing, the only degree that actually generates those four tones is the 7th. So, in A Harmonic Minor, that’d be G# dim 7. Chris Brooks’ “Neoclassical Speed Strategies” book talks about this stuff and how G#, B, D and F diminished seventh chords can each resolve to the tonic chord (Am) because of their connection to the E7b9 chord (E, G#, B, D, F). In other words, those 4 dim 7 chords can be treated like the dominant chord of the minor key.

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#25

Today I found something like this about “demonished hordes”

"Diminished chords are very often used as links
between two diatonic chords. The most common use:

A. Ascending:

  1. raised first degree (#I ??)
  • as a link between IMaj7 and IIm7
  1. raised second degree (# II ??)
  • as a link between IIm7 and IIIm7
  1. raised fourth degree (# IV ??)
  • as a link between IVMaj7 and V7
  1. raised fifth degree (#V ??)
  • as a connector between V7 and VIm7.

B. descending:

  1. lowered third degree (bIII ??)
  • as a link between IIIm7 and IIm7
  1. lowered sixth grade (bVI ??)
  • as a link between VIm7 and V7.

C. With the same note as the basis:

  1. First lowered degree (I ??)
  • as a transition chord between IMaj7i and IMaj7
  1. The fifth degree lowered (V ??)
  • as a transition chord between V7 and V7".

We are dealing with three types of diminished chord use, and thus as:

I. a chord whose base rises by half a pitch up between two diatonic chords (points A1, A2, A3 and A4)

II. the basis of the chord connecting two diatonic chords drops by half a tone down (points B1 and B2)

III. auxiliary chord. The basis of the chord remains unchanged
when the chords change.

The above examples of solutions are almost the rule,
but we can also meet the so-called alternative solutions. Here they are:

? chord #I ?? instead of solving it on Iim7, it can solve on dominant of IMaj7, that is, the G chord with the fifth in the bass (C # ?? → G / D),

? chord # II ?? instead of solving on IIIm7,can solve on first one with third in the bass (D # ?? → C / E),

? chord # IV ?? instead of solving on V7, it can be solved on first with fifth in the bass (F # ?? → C / G),

? chord #V ?? instead of solving it on Vim7, it can solve on dominant inserted into IIm7 (G # ?? → A7),

? chord bIII ?? instead of solving on Iim7, it can be solved on the V7
with the fifth in the bass (Eb ?? → G / D),

? chord bVI ?? instead of solving on V7, it can be solved on first with the fifth in the bass (Ab ?? → C / G) (example 4)".

Ufff,It’s too difficult for me in theory, I would have to see it :slight_smile:
Who has a profile on YT and can do a video about it? :smiley:

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#26

This might be of use:

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#27

Diminished chords can go up or down. In jazz they are used a lot to connect chords a whole step apart.

So In the key of C you have

I- C Maj 7
vii°/ii- C#°7
ii- D Minor 7
vii°/iii- D#°7
iii- E minor 7
vii°/IV- E°7
IV- F Maj 7
vii°/V- F#°7
V- G7
vii°/vi- G#°7
vi- A minor 7
vii°/vii- A#°7
vii°- B half diminished 7

Note that since diminished 7 chords are symmetrical (built in minor thirds) hat every note is actually a root note. So G#°7 = G#BDF. It’s the same chord as B(Cb)/D/F/Ab Diminished. Also these diminished chords are really just a rootless 7b9 chord. I’d you looked at G7b9- GBDFAb. You can see that there is a B°7 within the Chord. This is why B°7 can lead to C- as it has a dominant function.

Basically these secondary diminished chords are rootless 7b9 Secondary Dominants.

So vii°/ii is just a rootless VI7(b9/)ii.
A C# E G Bb.

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