Page 6

Harmony for the Compleat Idiot

...continued from front page

This chord can have a creepy, painful, unresolved feel, with just a hint of plaintive. It goes well with a dash of garlic, blood and insanity. Think love-lorn vampire.

Here are all the major/minor 7th chords in a table, along with their component notes:

Major/minor seventh chords

Chord Symbol	Notes in Chord
Cmin7	C Eb G B
Fmin7	F Ab C E
Bbmin7	Bb Db F A
Ebmin7	Eb Gb Bb D
Abmin7	Ab Cb Eb G
Dbmin7	Db Fb Ab C (also called C#min7 - C# E G# B#)
Gbmin7	Gb Bb Db F (also called F#min7 - F# A C# E#)
Bmin7	B D F# A#
Emin7	E G B D#
Amin7	A C E G#
Dmin7	D F A C#
Gmin7	G Bb D F#

We've included a couple of the alternative names and chord notes, eg: Dbmin7 is really the same as C#min7. Chords, like notes, can each have several different names depending on the circumstances. But the pitches remain the same.

Don’t be confused by the presence of both the term “major” AND the term “minor”. In chord symbol notation “minor” simply means that the 3rd flattened. Likewise “major” only ever means that the 7th is flattened. In chord symbol notation these terms never mean anything else! Don't you love consistency? This is why learning harmony is so much easier than learning French!

Am I hammering this point too much! No way! Bitter experience has taught me that the “major/minor” confusion in this area is often a serious stumbling-block for students, particularly for those with a background in “traditional” harmony.

Here are all 12 minor/major seventh chords in musical notation (with the alternative note names in brackets):

More on the Tonic Minor family

We now know three members of this family; the minor sixth, the minor/major seventh and of course the humble minor chord. The two things that define a member of this family are:

1. The 3rd is flattened.
2. If there is a 7th, it is major.

The Half Diminished chord

This chord is also known as the “minor 7th, flat 5 chord”. This name is actually more accurate than “half diminished” but both are in common use.

The name C minor 7th flat 5 (or Cmin7b5 for short) gives us all the information we need to work out the notes of this chord:

1. C: we need the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the Cmajor scale (C,E and G).
2. min: flatten the 3rd (so we now have C, Eb and G).
3. 7: add the flattened 7th (so we now have C, Eb, G and Bb).
4. b5: flatten the 5th (so we end up with C, Eb, Gb and Bb).

Generalising from our example, the min7b5 or half diminished chord is uses the following notes: 1 b3 b5 b7.

Now a diminished chord is 1, b3 b5 6 (actually a double flattened 7). If you want to be pedantic (and who doesn't love a pedant?), you can more accurately describe the min7b5 as a “two thirds diminished chord”. Feel free to point this out to other musicians if the mood takes you - just be prepared for them to say "whatever, man". The game is lost anyway since “half diminished” is a commonly used term and “two thirds diminished” is not!

Your homework is, if you hadn’t already guessed, to work out all twelve min7b5 chords.

Since these chords acquired the “half diminished” title they have also acquired a new symbol:

or sometimes:

Now you know what they are! You win two cool points (or maybe two geek points - whatever, man...)

Contact me on musosunion@aol.com if you have any questions. See you next time.

Home

Consider me gone

...continued from front page

I don't like:

Record companies: Almost all have contracts that amount to slavery. Not only that, they waste their ill-gotten gains in badly-thought-out business-as-usual in a world where everything about the way music is produced, bought, paid for and listened to has changed beyond recognition in the last ten years.

The way musicians are treated by venues: Many venues also seem to think it is OK to treat musicians as indentured servants. The number of stories I've heard about rudeness, cheating and underpayment by venues would fill a Bible of regret. A few venues treat you nicely. Even fewer offer a good finanical deal as well, but those few are to be cherished. May the number of the righteous swell.

The way musicians are treated by promoters, managers and other denizens of the music industry: as for venues, but add more lies, myths and bad percentage deals.

I do like:

Musicians: Bless their grubby little runners, I do like musicians, the dear little possums. Many are idealistically ignorant, lazy in business, appallingly bad, star-dusted into imbecility when it comes to making deals (here's a clue - read and understand a contract before you sign it - read, it, understand it, and visualise the consequences...).
But without musicians, we would have no live music, and we would have lost an elixir of life only sometimes second to sex (and usually less complicated to access).
Musicians are the first to volunteer for charity gigs, will work at complex material for countless hours for an ideal of quality and performance, and be generous and open-hearted with money, time and advice for other up-and-comings. At their best, their divine skill can steal your breath and wring a cry of glorious pain from your heart.

The Musicians Union: This beleaguered, under-funded organisation has had a past both ignoble and glorious, but it currently has an integrity that puts most larger Unions to shame, and a wealth of knowledge and experience that you should be breaking down the door to get your ears around, because you will find it nowhere else.
Not many unions so willingly help even those who are not members and never will be. This is the only organisation around dedicated purely to the welfare of working musicians. If it thrives, things will improve for you. If it disappears, believe it or not, things will get worse. Yes, as a member and ex-employee, I know I am partisan in this, but sometimes partisans are the ones who know how things really are.

Whew. Got that off my chest.

My successor Megan Albany will take this ezine to new heights, improve it beyond recognition, without compromising its core mission, which is to boldly give you what few other music magazines will - the truth.

So long, y'all - it's been real.

Home