Issue
8 Volume 1
Christmas 2005
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Issue
8 Volume 1
Christmas 2005 |
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Harmony for the compleat idiot (8) DIMINISHED CHORDS:
You may have noticed that when we list diminished chords in this order we get into double flats pretty quickly. Remember, a double-flat just means lowering a note by two semitones. They are traditionally used so that the chords all have the same triad spacing ( a triad is a three note chord) when written in music notation. In other words, the chord notes appear on three adjacent lines or spaces. Let's take an example: We've seen that the notes in the chord Ab dim are Ab, Cb and Ebb. When we write these notes in music notation they look like this:
See how those little notes are arranged in a nice neat stack, one on top of the other? That's triad spacing. (Although "triad spacing" is not a generally accepted musical term, it does describe what we are talking about rather well and, since this is my series of articles, I will continue to use it! [Ah the power! Ed.]) Now we know that Cb is the same as B and that Ebb is the same as D so we could just call them that and avoid all this alternative name malarkey couldn't we? Well, yes we could but we would lose the attractive "triad look" when we wrote the chord out in musical notation, like so….
Actually there are a few advantages to thinking in the traditional way but at this stage I don't really care which way you look at it. Just make sure that you understand both. Here are all 12 diminished chords in musical notation (with the alternative note names in brackets):
Remember that "o" can be used instead of "dim"
to represent a diminished chord. Now let's attack the augmented chord! AUGMENTED CHORDS:
You will probably have noticed that this time that the double sharp, E# and B# appear in the second half of the list. This is because our cycle order goes first through the flat keys, then through the sharp ones. Remember that a double sharp just means raising a note by two semitones. As with double flats, they are traditionally used so that the chords all have the same triad spacing when written in music notation. The same goes for the E# and B# which we know are really F and C. Here are all 12 augmented chords in musical notation (with the alternative note names in brackets):
Remember that "+" can be used instead of "aug"
to represent an augmented chord. The 12 "Power Chords" don't give us much alternative note trouble, here they are: POWER CHORDS:
Here are all 12 Power chords in musical notation:
Now to our promised first four note chord. The Seventh Chord This chord is also known as the dominant seventh chord and sometimes called a seven chord or a dominant seven chord. We'll stick with seventh chord. The symbol for this chord is, not surprisingly, a 7. What is surprising is that the 7 does not represent the 7th note of the major scale but represents the flattened seventh note of the major scale. Say the following to yourself over and over until it is absolutely stuck in your head: "7 means flat 7" Is it stuck? Good, let's continue. Here's the symbol for a C seventh chord: C7 Now we already know that the letter "C" alone represents the first third and fifth notes of the C major scale. You have just been told that "7 means flat 7" so C7 must mean the first, third, fifth and flattened seventh notes of the C major scale. Te seventh note of the C major scale is B (count if you don't believe me). Flattened means lowered in pitch by one semitone so the flattened seventh of C major is Bb. So…. the notes in a C7 chord are: C E G Bb Here it is in music notation
Got it? If you have any doubts, read it over again and revise any stuff from previous issues that is necessary. This is a REALLY IMPORTANT chord so it is important that we understand its structure properly from the start. Lets do another one: D7 The D tells us that we need the first, third and fifth notes from the D major scale (they are D, F# and A). The 7 tells us we need the flattened seventh note of the same scale. The seventh is C#, so the flattened seventh note will be C. Therefore, the notes in D7are D F# A C. Here it is in music notation.
Your homework (surprise, surprise) is to work out all 12 seventh chords. Our first Progression Very early in this series I said that we should not call harmony theory. We should call it fact. Some progressions of chords give an unmistakable feeling of forward movement (check instalment 1 and note the Hoocairs caveat). The most common of these is a seventh chord followed by a major or minor chord whose root is next in the cycle from the root of the seventh chord. Read the previous paragraph enough times that you are positive you've got it. Consult your cycle if its not properly memorised yet; remember that cyclical movement is clockwise! Got it? OK, let's do an example:
Now let's look at these two short progressions: C7 F and C7 Fmin Play them on your chordal instrument (one that can play more than one note at a time) of choice. Single note instrument players, you can try playing the notes of the two chords one at a time. This will give you some of the effect but I strongly recommend that you fumble round a keyboard or guitar. Drummers, fumbling is strongly recommended for you too. This little progression has several names. Classical musicians call it the "Perfect Cadence" Jazz musicians tend to call it a "five one" or "five seven one" progression. This can be misleading unless you realize they are referring to Roman numerals representing the notes of the scale (in order). So in our case we would be talking about the F scale. F is obviously the first note so it gets called one (or I in Roman numerals). The fifth note of the F scale is C so C gets called five (or V in Romans). "C7 F" is obviously "five, one". If we want to make sure that we communicate the fact that the first chord is a seventh chord we say so, hence "five seven one" but the seven is not one of those roman numerals, it indicates that the chord built on "five" is a seventh chord. In Romans it would look like this" "V7 I" Confused? Read over again slowly. If you are still stuck drop me an email. Some other names for this progression are: " Dominant - Tonic" Try working out all twelve of these progressions and see how many of
them you can find in the music you are playing now.
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CD REVIEWS John
Calvin Let it be said straight up, this double-CD set gets four earplugs from this reviewer, not least because it arrived wedged into a case of Moet. But this set is more than the packaging. On that hot July afternoon in 1546, Calvin was at his railing best; and, although the takes appear here in edited-down versions, they manage to capture the persuasive dynamism that is the great Reformer in person.
Every effect available to the pulpit preacher is on display
here: sheer delightful articulation, sinuous, masculine lines; shakes,
tremolos, rips and growls; blistering glissandos; walls of verbiage
and dramatic stops; the emphatic single repeated syllables and the most
lyrical of extended narrative passages.
Onomatopoeia If you never hear this recording, you'll never know what it sounds
like.
Most of the tracks are originals, although two are covers: of Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939; and of George W. Bush clearing his throat during morning ablutions. On hearing this recording, Amelia Erhart put up her umbrella, held out her hand and was never seen again. No earplugs and an apology.
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