Harmony for the compleat idiot (6)

...continued from front page

Here they are:

MAJOR CHORDS:

Chord Symbol	Notes in Chord
C	C E G
F	F A C
Bb	Bb D F
Eb	Eb G Bb
Ab	Ab C Eb
Db	Db F Ab
Gb	Gb Bb Db
B	B D# F#
E	E G# B
A	A C# E
D	D F# A
G	G B D

MINOR CHORDS:

Chord Symbol	Notes in Chord
Cmin	C Eb G
Fmin	F Ab C
Bbmin	Bb Db F
Ebmin	Eb Gb Bb
Abmin	Ab Cb Eb
Dbmin	Db Fb Ab
Gbmin	Gb Bbb Db
Bmin	B D F#
Emin	E G B
Amin	A C E
Dmin	D F A
Gmin	G Bb D

How did you go? If you got them all right, you get an elephant stamp!

Made some mistakes? Don't panic! Reread the harmony article in the last issue carefully and try to find your error; you may need to go back to previous issues if you can't find it. If all else fails, email me on "musosunion@aol.com".

ENHARMONIC EQUIVALENTS

Remember we have discussed that notes can have more than one name? (these aliases are called "enharmonic equivalents" - another fancy term to impress your friends with!) Well, the same goes for chords. Here are some of the chords worked out above using one of their other names (and using the appropriate note names to match - remember that the 1st and 3rd notes and the 3rd and 5th notes of the scale that are used in major or minor chords should each be two alphabetical steps apart.)

MAJOR CHORDS:

Chord Symbol	Notes in Chord
G#	G# B# D# (same as Ab)
C#	C# E# G# (same as Db)
F#	F# A# C# (same as Gb)
A#	A# Cx E# (same as Bb)
D#	D# Fx A# (same as Eb)

What are those little "x" symbols you may well ask? They are "double sharps", the sharp equivalent of double flats. Soooo…. they mean RAISE the note by TWO semitones! Soooo…. Cx is the same note as D! And Fx is the same note as G!

MINOR CHORDS:

Chord Symbol	Notes in Chord
A#min	A# C# E# (same as Bbmin)
D#min	D# F# A# (same as Ebmin)
G#min	G# B D# (same as Abmin)
C#min	C# E G# (same as Dbmin)
F#min	F# A C# (same as Gbmin)

"SUS" CHORDS

No, we are not going to discuss suspect or suspicious chords. The "sus" is short for "suspended". There are two types of suspended chord in common use in modern harmony. They are:

1. suspended fourth chord
2. suspended second chord

In both of these triads the third note of the scale (which is the second note of the chord, confused? ...go back and reread some of the earlier articles) is replaced by another note.

In the suspended fourth chord the "third" (this is what we commonly call the third note of the scale from which the chord is built) is replaced by the FOURTH note of the scale from which the chord is built (the "fourth").

In the suspended second chord the "third" (this is what we commonly call the third note of the scale from which the chord is built) is replaced by the SECOND note of the scale from which the chord is built (the "second").

We can consider the term "suspended" to mean: "Replace the third with……"
The dots indicate that we still need another piece of information. The term has other meanings particularly in more traditional harmony but we won't bother with that for now…remember "hoocairs"?

The way we indicate a suspended chord is by the abbreviation "sus", hence the heading of this section! Here is an example of a symbol indicating a suspended chord:

Csus4

Look at the symbol closely. We already know that the letter "C" is telling us to use the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes from the C major scale. We have also just learned that "sus" means: "Replace the third with……". That only leaves "4" to be explained. You have probably guessed already that you are supposed to replace the third with the fourth. If you have you are correct! Have another elephant stamp!

So…. Csus4 means:

1. Take the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the C major scale.
2. Replace the 3rd note of the scale (the third) with the 4th note of the scale (the fourth).

Let's work it out:

1. The 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the C major scale are C, E and G.
2. The 4th note of the C major scale is F, so we replace E with F.

That gives us: C F G.
These are the notes in the Csus4 chord. Incidentally we would name this chord "C suspended fourth" or (more commonly and colloquially) "C sus 4".

The suspended second is pretty much the same idea, except you replace the third with the second. Here's a frinstance:

Csus2

Csus2 means:

1. Take the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the C major scale.
2. Replace the 3rd note of the scale (the third) with the 2nd note of the scale (the second).

Let's work it out:

1. The 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the C major scale are C, E and G.
2. The 2nd notes of the C major scale is D, so we replace E with D.

That gives us: C D G.
These are the notes in the Csus2 chord. We call this "C suspended second" or more commonly "C sus 2".

MORE CONFUSION!!!

It is very common to see just "sus" in chord symbols. When you see this it means "sus4". The less common "sus2" is written with the number. I recommend you use the number in both cases to avoid confusion but lots and lots of people don't do this so you can ignore me if you want to!!

HOMEWORK

Work out all 12 "sus4" and all 12 "sus2" chords. May a herd of elephants descend upon you! Incidentally all this working out has an ulterior secondary motive which is to get you more used to key signatures and degrees of major scales so smile as you work out… its good for you!

THE DOTS

The more astute of you will have noticed that up to now we have not looked at music notation. We are getting to the point where it will be useful. If you already know how to read music skip this bit, if you don't, fear not! We'll go really slowly.

First we must remove some preconceptions:

1. Musical notation can be useful for all types of music, not just jazz or classical music.
2. Learning to read music will not destroy your creativity.
3. Learning to read music is not impenetrably difficult.

Musical notation is simply an efficient means of communicating musical ideas. Although poets can work in oral traditions, the best-known write down words! Notation gives a similar advantage to musicians.

To represent notes by notation we use five lines like so:

we can put dots on any of the lines:

Any dot on a particularly line represents a specific note. We can also put dots between the lines (the spaces between the lines are called...spaces!). Any dot on a particular space represents a specific note.

Sooo…. here are all the dots we can put on the lines and the spaces:

You may notice that some of the dots are slightly different sizes. Full marks for observation but THIS HAS ABSOLUTELY NO SIGNIFICANCE! The variation in size is caused by my inability to manipulate simple graphics software with any degree of skill! If you can identify which line or space the dot is on then you have all the information you need.

We now have 9 different places to put dots. Each of these places represents a particular note. Dots near the bottom represent low-pitched notes and dots closer to the top represent higher-pitched notes. We can even make more places by adding more lines. We don't add a whole line, just a tiny bit to indicate that we need to represent notes that are higher or lower than the ones indicated by the 11 places. These little bits of lines are called ledger lines. Here's what they look like:

By adding ledger lines we can indicate notes over a much larger range. Using just two ledger lines below and two above we suddenly can indicate 19 notes!! What a bargain. Check this out (no laughing at my graphics):

Remember: as you go upwards you are representing notes of a higher pitch, the lower you go, the lower the pitch.

TERMINOLOGY

The set of five lines is called the staff (plural staves).
We call the dots notes (because that is what they represent).

CLEFS

Which notes are represented by each line and space? Well, that depends. In order to make the system flexible enough to represent a huge range of notes, several different staves are used. Each one assigns different notes to different lines and spaces… BUT whichever staff you are using the notes go up in alphabetical order as you move up through the places where you can put notes.

Which staff you are using is indicated by a symbol at the beginning of the staff. This symbol is called a clef. We will start by using just one clef, it is called the treble clef. It looks like this:

When we see the treble clef at the beginning of a staff it tells us that the pitch represented by a note on the lowest line (not counting any ledger lines) is E (for those of you who want more information, it's the next E above middle C). We call the lowest line the first line.

Since we know the notes go up alphabetically, the note in the next available spot must be F. The next available spot is the space between the first two lines. This is called the first space. Following the process further, the note on the second line must be G and the note on the second space must be A (remember we start again when we come to the end of the short musical alphabet) and so on. Here's how it looks:

Traditionally music students have been taught to remember the notes like this;
The spaces as you ascend spell the word FACE
The lines as you ascend can be remembered by one of these:
Every Good Boy Does Fine
Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit
Evil George Bush Destroys Foreigners
(Can you tell I made the last one up?)

If this stuff helps you, use it but remember that if you know only one line or space, you can work the rest out easily by stepping forwards or back wards through the musical alphabet.

Just to finish off, here's how a C major chord looks in musical notation:

Next time we'll do some more chords and find out how musical notation handles sharps and flats. Good luck with your homework. THE ELEPHANTS ARE COMING!!

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Music videos backed into
dark corner

Shakira ass! Show me what you're working with!

A panel of experts met for ten minutes in Brooklyn recently to review the state of music video as an art form. Choreographer Terps Mittleweg of London based video giant The Look Factory chirped that budget was the only difference between the videos of Shakira, Holly and Christina and lap dancing. Rolly Peddlekrapp of Mondo Video said "What you see is what you hear". He has recently concluded an exhausting three continent wide search of gynecology centres. He was looking at pre natal ultrasounds to audition aspirants to feature in the latest Beyonce video for the Dancing Foetus track from the In Excelsis Utero CD. He said, "After the thongerama of the last two years this was the only place left to go."

DJ Spooky responded that "the nexus / plexus of hip crotch and cleavage colludes with the symbiosis of the myth of the jade flute. Urgency / synergy/ plasticity/ complicity."

Mustapha Onan, marketing manager for Arse Longa's The Laptop Dancing Series said "That's shit." There were no dissenting voices.

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Don't give it away just yet

Gilles Willey in converse with Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Gilles: Like, you guys have come such a long way. It's been an amazing ride for us all. How do you see your current position artistically?

Kiedis: Well, its a whole eclectic mix of stylistic things. I wanted to say pot pourri right there, but that's like for Vanity Fair, who are up next; not you guys, heh, heh. See, what I want to say is that whole haircut thing was just another part of our musical development. Right now we've come full circle but in a progressive kind of way. I mean, most of our fans are more into the derivatives market now and that's a whole new thing in itself. Since retail has gone belly-up with the introduction of the euro, its kind of comforting in a totally revolutionary way to know that some elements of your brand are holding their market share. Our Hendrix profile has picked up a few points with older dudes who have just gotten into us. Like, sure, they can relate, but it's kind of sad in another way. You know what I'm saying obviously.

Gilles: Right. It seems that in your latest work there's something almost animistic that transcends. Would that be right?

Kiedis: Totally. You're a sensitive guy. I actually cried when I sensed the whole totemism of Frusciente's miasma. It's not like it was a revelation or anything. It was so totally ahead and within the tradition of shamanistic thought processing over the last two thousand years or so that I knew it would sell a lot of units. It's all in the chemistry, of course. I mean, John is, like, so totally a catalyst for me that the underlying exploitiveness and superficiality just comes organically.

Gilles: I think we all sense that. Thank you. It's been profoundly superficial.

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