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7sus4 versus 11


zephonic

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Yeah, that's a great piece! Hadn't heard it in a long time. Thanks for the link. There's so much great stuff out there. As for my example....you can see that as poly roots if you want and it's nice to be able to, but you don't have to. There are times I see 3 and monkey around with them.
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Polytonality is whole big can of worms. Music theorists have been fighting over it for over 150 years. I think it often depends on intent. When you listen to Charles Ives simulate two bands playing two different pieces at the same time, it's really pointless to analyze the chords as being a unified whole. The brain isn't going to interpret it that way, it's going to jump back and forth between the two unrelated harmonies. I believe there's actual true polytonality. And it's not just limited to "experimental" pieces like Ives. I know several instances of Stravinsky and Ravel (Left Hand Concerto) and countless others who are employing this technique for the specific purpose of depicting two independent ideas. I think many music theorists dismiss this.

 

However, "polytonality" can also be used to justify laziness and an unwillingness to analyze complex harmonic structures, so I do understand why theory professors and researchers are dubious about the claim, there has to be justifiable intent, with some real thought to how the listener is likely to interpret the two interwoven lines.

Puck Funk! :)

 

Equipment: Laptop running lots of nerdy software, some keyboards, noise makersâ¦yada yada yadaâ¦maybe a cat?

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What a troll.

 

I think my work is done here. lol

 

I was wondering, regarding your example, you have a series of #9 b6 b7 chords in series descending by minor thirds which do not serve a dominant function. So you sequence four in a row with the most dissonant of all dominant alt 7th voicings; and its poly-tonal, two chords, and not dominant.

 

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[checks thread for first time] Well, I'm certainly glad to see that a post asking a simple question with a simple answer hasn't devolved into personal recriminations over tangentially-related topics again. [ducks back out]

 

Geez. I finally checked out this thread also. I'm done. :(

 

 

I think my work is done here. lol

 

appreciate you, Linwood. :thu:

:nopity:
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Then ,like me, you get how valuable it is to be able to see things from bottom to top, top to bottom, the middle out, interval relationships, and poly roots and bitonal chords, etc. We don't think this way because we are lazy or don't understand complex harmony, nor is it a short cut.

 

 

emeneltonthat's not meant to be music at all. It's just a root movement pattern of m3's in 1 octave. Much like playing that structure through the cycle. I have students play structures like these usually in whole steps, m3,M3, 4ths, tritone, and fifths in ascending and descending order until you reach the starting root again. Sometimes it's not all that musical sounding, but you will discover things that you'll like and use. Sometimes you might voice things open and parallel in the bass and close regular vl in the treble and look for tones to pass. Like HERE and this is nothingjust an example: same as the first one. AbM in the treble and moving down in m3s and I'm 3 to 4 in the treble on each root movement and it returns to 5 of the next one. In the bass let's use a Bbm triad moving down in m3s. All close harmony. The first voicing is F Bb Db Eb Ab C. Of course we know that it's a Bbm11, but I'm thinking bitonal triads. Play with it with open harmony in the bass like 1 5 -10 and close up top. And this doesn't have to be for keysit'd sound nice with WW's or strings. Good stuff to use for endings,segues, intros and go rootless in the bass, etc. Ton of stuff to explore here...

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Then ,like me, you get how valuable it is to be able to see things from bottom to top, top to bottom, the middle out, interval relationships, and poly roots and bitonal chords, etc. We don't think this way because we are lazy or don't understand complex harmony, nor is it a short cut.

 

 

emeneltonthat's not meant to be music at all. It's just a root movement pattern of m3's in 1 octave. Much like playing that structure through the cycle. I have students play structures like these usually in whole steps, m3,M3, 4ths, tritone, and fifths in ascending and descending order until you reach the starting root again. Sometimes it's not all that musical sounding, but you will discover things that you'll like and use. Sometimes you might voice things open and parallel in the bass and close regular vl in the treble and look for tones to pass. Like HERE and this is nothingjust an example: same as the first one. AbM in the treble and moving down in m3s and I'm 3 to 4 in the treble on each root movement and it returns to 5 of the next one. In the bass let's use a Bbm triad moving down in m3s. All close harmony. The first voicing is F Bb Db Eb Ab C. Of course we know that it's a Bbm11, but I'm thinking bitonal triads. Play with it with open harmony in the bass like 1 5 -10 and close up top. And this doesn't have to be for keysit'd sound nice with WW's or strings. Good stuff to use for endings,segues, intros and go rootless in the bass, etc. Ton of stuff to explore here...

Are you describing in the second half the clip from your link?

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Thanks Mr Linwood. I often think of upper structure as only for dominant 7ths. Of course minor 11ths deserve the same treatment.

 

Re: hearing this as a Viennese Classical cadence, I had a teacher who believed that Westerners are so culturally biased in our listening that we tend to hear everything as classical Western music. Even 12 tone series.

 

Dave, truly with great respect, the Major is in your interpreting ear.

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Try that Ab/Bbm but move it up in m3s instead and pass 1 to 7 to 5 ( Ab G F#) of the following root. Start an oct higher and go 2 octs. It's a nice sound. Also; that dom7 series... you don't have to use all the notes and could do things like this with the information. Say you need a short painfully slow intro to get you to BM7 with piano and strings. You get the idea...

 

http://linwoodbell.com/clientdownloads/pr3.jpg

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Unless you play on a real analog or a piano tuned to sound "inside" etc, it's probably a digital thing to play with the chords many seem to do.

 

There's no way a lot of the chords mentioned are going to be played in isolation on a good instrument, and probably the OP example can better be seen as a half wrought way to combine two chords. 4 tones in a chord with a normal function single lowered 7th can only go so many ways, unless you use a pedal note or walking bass to imply actual harmonic meaning.

 

The sus-4 or sus-2 come across the spectrum of different chords you can create with the notes in one octave. The 11th, as the name makes clear, cannot have the same function as the rest of the chord, being an addition an all, so it's not part of the canonical theory of basic chords as such, and as soon as you allow a lot of dissonance, it's probably a matter of tritone intervals, which will resolve in ways which are normally known in conservatory theory.

 

T

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Bars 9 and 13, I consider them Tonic type (Major 7th chord) 43 suspensions on beat 1. Most musicians call it an apogiatura, but I don't play the major 7th underneath that melody on beat 1. So in my head its a sus 43 on TONIC TYPE CHORD. This happens in a bunch of other standards too. With longer melodic durations of the 43.

http://www.guitarcats.com/images/JazzStandardCharts/STELLA%20BY%20STARLIGHT-408.jpg

 

 

Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book." Find 850 of Harry's solo piano arrangements of standards and jazz tutorials at https://www.patreon.com/HarryLikas 
 

 

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Tones from most instruments will get recognized by their fundamental frequencies and the main harmonics. forming chords with additions will not usually call attention for the relation of the additions, as they will most likely be heard as interfering with the harmonics (octaves, fifths maybe some other in complicated Jazz compositions for instance on piano) because the overtones of the lower notes in the chord will be in the same octave range as the added notes (2d harmonic --> one octave, 3d harmonic about an octave and a half, 4th harmonic two octaves higher, etc).

 

This is the main reason for using "additions" instead of just kicking chords on top of eachother. It also makes piano playing in the normal chord range an interesting harmonic experience by playing with the relative phase of the tones.

 

T.

 

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