Time for another pedantic theory question

[linwood]

I'm not gonna play a Gbsus2 Ab Db Gb ever. Dbsus...you bet.

[Reezekeys]

I think everyone's got the right idea...and indeed, it does become a personal choice. I believe the Gbsus2/Bb or a Bbm7+ (#5...pick your nomenclature) works.

 

The Gbsus2/Bb, particularly, always leads me to feel like it's a passing chord, from say Gb to Gb/Bb...in this case with an added sus2 for colour. The latter doesn't necessarily put you in the key of Bbm.

Again, harmomic analysis is not my goal... just a simple way to write a chord symbol that conveys the sound of the voicing in the first post of this thread. I know context counts, but as I said, this particular song doesn't have a strong key center with obvious cadences so the simpler the spelling the better - for reasons I indicated I'm going with Bbm7#5

 

With the above in mind, here's another take....and this obviously depends on context and the way you approach your modes. If you're trying to think in terms of 4ths, you might think of the chord in question as Ab7/4 (I'm told this is quite common in Brazilian contexts as well). Yes, you need to get a slash Bb in there somehow. So, if you're writing the chord symbol, stack the 74 and then slash the Bb. You might find that reading the chord symbol in this way influences your improvisational approach differently (perhaps easier...YMMV).

I have not seen a chord symbol spelled with a "7/4", ever. To do that, then slash a Bb, well, if someone handed me a chart with that and I was sight reading it I would fall on face when I got to that chord!

[MAJUSCULE]

Why don't we have a shorthand to indicate a quartal voicing, though? It's such a defined sound and we often lack the ability to convey what we want with our usual chordal nomenclature. I'm feeling like it wouldn't take up that much more space on the page to write an extra (4ths) or even (4s) after a chord. Maybe things would just end up being more cluttered but I think some sort of something to be used judiciously could really help get the message across more quickly.

 

Edit: Seeing Bernmeister's post now, I posted while Zooming with some friends, not sure if that's what the 7/4 voicing means.

[AROIOS]

Here's beautiful tune I came across in 2016 that puts this chord to excellent use:

 

[video:youtube]

[marczellm]

Here are two situations that usually lead me to the exact voicing you describe:

 

Abm7 Gb/Bb

Or

Cb Gb/Bb

 

Yes, the Ab note is specified in neither. But I always slip that in for color. So there"s my vote for the Gb based notation as the song context is the second of those.

[stoken6]

Rick Beato would write AbQ/Bb.

 

Don't do that.

 

I'm going to revise my answer slightly: Gbsus2/Bb suggests that the Ab in the RH replaces the Bb that would normally occur in the Gb triad, rather then joining it. (My original "add2" does the opposite, which is not what is desired). But it still doesn't enforce the stacked-fourths of the desired voicing - I can't think of a way of doing that, short of notation or a comment.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[woodtus]

I prefer Gbadd9/Bb

or maybe Bbm7b13

depending on context

[Al Quinn]

I"d have a good shot at playing what you want if the chart said Dbsus4/Bb. I would either play the three top notes in fourths or perhaps a different inversion of Dbsus4 depending on what comes before and after this chord.

 

I"ve seen minor 7 #5 in charts I"ve read but that causes me to think â which means I might mess up depending on the tempo â whereas Dbsus/Bb I just know and play. Of course, I"m just stating a limitation I have that others may not have. I also remember seeing minor 7 #5 (aeolian) in a chart.

[Theo Verelst]

An added (lowered) 13 doesn't imply no fifth in the main chords symbol. If the chord is used in a harmonic context as a 7, the augmented intention serves the dominant function, so is logical, even though a minor chord can only turn into a diminished, because a minor chord with a 5+ actually is just another major chord, and so isn't uniquely qualifiable within the normal system of using the smallest possible set of various names. Similarly, an augmented chord is normally based on a major chord, which woudn't be uniquely qualifiable within the normal system of using the smallest possible set of various names.

 

I agree for the minor augmented 5 situation writing 5#, because the chord is exactly that, and so the minor/aug combination is prevented. Using 13b depends on the intention of the chord, and like I said, then you should add no 5th to the chord name.

 

In fusion a stack of fourths either arpeggiated or sounding together is not strange, but there are a number of harmonic functions, which could be normal chord progressions, chromatic pass chords, inharmonic embellishments, modulation transition chords, etc.

 

T

[Mike Davis]

Not a serious answer:

 

AbQ/Bb

 

[MathOfInsects]

Minor 7 #5 or + would both get me there, in isolation. As others have said, I'd have more thoughts on what to name it if I knew what came before or after. (If the chord before it were a Dbsus 2 and this was only a bass-note change, for example, I'd name the chord after that Dbsus. Ditto Gb. Or if it functioned in a particular way in the harmony that made other spellings more intuitive.)

 

In isolation, the slash sus chords would take me a second to process, and I'd personally be inclined to build them root-up, which would not get you your preferred quartile voicing. That's maybe just me though. A 7th chord with an alteration in the upper structure would almost certainly land me there immediately.

 

We who post here are 97% of the humans on Earth who have ever heard the term "mu" to describe the "Steely Dan" chord, so that wouldn't do it IMO.

 

7/4 would not get me there either. From a theory perspective, a "6-4" chord means something so specific that "7-4" would have me thinking in major tonality, or at least puzzling out what the heck it could mean, for just long enough that the change would be long gone.

[Reezekeys]

Minor 7 #5 or + would both get me there, in isolation. As others have said, I'd have more thoughts on what to name it if I knew what came before or after.

 

One thing this thread has me doing â in addition to highlighting my adequacy as a theory "non-expert", lol! â is look at the chart again. I think I can probably get away writing it with a key signature of Bb. The verse starts on a Bb major chord and the first chord of the hook is a D minor. As I said before, there are no typical V to I cadences that point strongly to a key of Bb but looking at the melody and most of the chords, it might work.

 

Anyway, for grins I present "what came before" as you asked. Below is the last half of the hook with the controversial Bbm7#5 or Gbsus/Bb or whatever chord at the end. The DS goes back to the verse which at this point is a sax solo but you'll hear the Bb major (to be accurate, a Bb/D) before I fade out on the short mp3 excerpt here. Does this inform anyone a little better as to how they would spell that last chord?

 

 

Love and Paris Rain excerpt

[linwood]

Bbm7#5 works perfectly there.

[jarrell]

As I said before, I prefer m7#5 - even though in American jazz/pop there is no conventional naming of this chord, there is a convention in Brazilian music which even connotes that specific voicing.

 

Speaking of voicing, part of what I consider good chord voicing is minimization of note movement between chords, and in sight-reading I often think in terms of that. Often a set of chord changes can be explained by, say, a guitar voicing where only one finger is moved by one fret. In your example, on the bottom line, starting with the Gb/Db,

 

 

 

... there is good voice leading built into the chord progression already, and the context makes clear that the move from B 6/9 to Bbm7#5 could involve only changing the bass note, if you leave out the 3rd as I did (or put it in, but the shape of the voice leading is clear).

 

In music like this chords can go anywhere, and so key signatures and enharmonic spellings can be problematic. Case in point, going from Db to B natural in the bass is not the greatest, but neither is using a Cb - I too would prefer to use B :-)

[Reezekeys]

One thing you can be pretty sure of in a Russ Ferrante penned song: you're gonna see lots of examples of smooth voice leading! Many of the Jacket's tunes have similar progressions. The intro to the song I'm posting in this thread has one where, like in the graphic you posted from the hook, only the bass note changes:

 

 

I hear a lot of this in Brazilian music too. It's what got me trying to play it! Just the beautiful ways the chords move from one to the next. Dori Caymmi, Guinga, Sergio Mendes, Ivan Lins, etc. Great stuff.

 

I was waiting to be called out for the Eb in the bar with the B6/9 chord symbol. To be "correct" to the chord spelling it should probably be a D#, but my brain doesn't do well reading a melody that moves a whole step (the Db before that note) yet is on the same space! And like you, I avoid Cb and Fb in a chart â even if it makes it "wrong." I just know that I stumble a little bit more when I sight-read a chart with those spellings.

[MathOfInsects]

FWIW, I'm glad you posted this. I'm not sure what was behind the hesitation, but I find it really interesting to see how different people approach this. I think you're safely at the career point where you can bet that if *you* have a question about something, others certainly will too.

 

Cool thread!

[linwood]

Lots of things you can do with 4ths and vl and chromatic moves...

[jarrell]

 

I was waiting to be called out for the Eb in the bar with the B6/9 chord symbol. To be "correct" to the chord spelling it should probably be a D#, but my brain doesn't do well reading a melody that moves a whole step (the Db before that note) yet is on the same space! And like you, I avoid Cb and Fb in a chart â even if it makes it "wrong." I just know that I stumble a little bit more when I sight-read a chart with those spellings.

 

Yeah, I don't like to see melody and chords at enharmonic odds... actually I would change Gb/Db to F#/C#, and the melody to sharps there as well, so the entire melodic phrase and accompanying chords are all one "enharmonic flavor." I think it is also easier to make an enharmonic transition from B to Bb rather than from Db to B, and also from a bar that is not busy (one note + a rest).

[jarrell]

Nice, Linwood!

 

Although in general chords symbols cannot dictate the exact inversion, the D2/F# chord mentioned earlier, could be thought of as F#m7#5... However, that would imply raising the D an octave to be the highest note in the chords (for the most characteristic inversion), or at least allow for that possibility, whereas D2/F# clearly says (in my mind, at least) "E right next to the D, and A a 5th above."

[linwood]

It's funny, if I see D2 my pea brain only goes, in interval speak, 2+5. If that were Asus I'll think 5+2, 2+5, and 5+5.

[Reezekeys]

 

I was waiting to be called out for the Eb in the bar with the B6/9 chord symbol. To be "correct" to the chord spelling it should probably be a D#, but my brain doesn't do well reading a melody that moves a whole step (the Db before that note) yet is on the same space! And like you, I avoid Cb and Fb in a chart â even if it makes it "wrong." I just know that I stumble a little bit more when I sight-read a chart with those spellings.

Yeah, I don't like to see melody and chords at enharmonic odds... actually I would change Gb/Db to F#/C#, and the melody to sharps there as well, so the entire melodic phrase and accompanying chords are all one "enharmonic flavor." I think it is also easier to make an enharmonic transition from B to Bb rather than from Db to B, and also from a bar that is not busy (one note + a rest).

OK I did that and it makes sense, then looked at the bar before that and thought I should change the D# under the Gbmin6 to an Eb. It does make more sense, but I'm not sure how folks feel about encountering bars with both flats & sharps like this - I always tried to keep things consistent in that way. I know there's plenty of 20th-century classical music with sharps & flats mixed all over the place, I just don't remember seeing it much in the jazz world. Or maybe I'm all wet and this is no big deal?

 

[AROIOS]

One thing you can be pretty sure of in a Russ Ferrante penned song: you're gonna see lots of examples of smooth voice leading! Many of the Jacket's tunes have similar progressions. The intro to the song I'm posting in this thread has one where, like in the graphic you posted from the hook, only the bass note changes:

 

 

I don't see how chord notation conventions as they are today will satisfy the level of precision on voicing you're looking for.

 

Chord notations were born as a tool to indicate harmony functions. They weren't designed to indicate exact chord voicing, that's the score's job. It makes sense to mark chords as a suggestion of harmonic color when there are only melody lines as we see in Realbooks/Fakebooks. But they are just that, suggestions, Jazz musicians are expected to unpack them the way they see fit.

 

In your score above, voicing of the 2 chords have been explicitly laid out already, what benefit does the chord symbols actually offer in addition? The B6/9 notation brings about the exact problem you tried to avoid in the first place, you'll have to mark it as something like B6/9(omit3) to avoid someone playing the Eb note "accidentally".

 

Even if we do go down the path of using a tool for it unintended purpose, wouldn't F#sus2/B take care of that "omit3" problem more concisely?

[PianoMan51]

In context, my view is:

 

The penultimate chord is Cb6/9.

 

The final chord is Gb6/9 | Bb.

 

A plagal cadence with the bass ending on the third.

[Reezekeys]

One thing you can be pretty sure of in a Russ Ferrante penned song: you're gonna see lots of examples of smooth voice leading! Many of the Jacket's tunes have similar progressions. The intro to the song I'm posting in this thread has one where, like in the graphic you posted from the hook, only the bass note changes:

I don't see how chord notation conventions as they are today will satisfy the level of precision on voicing you're looking for.

 

Chord notations were born as a tool to indicate harmony functions. They weren't designed to indicate exact chord voicing, that's the score's job. It makes sense to mark chords as a suggestion of harmonic color when there are only melody lines as we see in Realbooks/Fakebooks. But they are just that, suggestions, Jazz musicians are expected to unpack them the way they see fit.

Well "level of precision" is relative, I guess. I wanted to transcribe this tune and write out the chart that I'd like to see: short, simple, yet conveying as much information as possible so another musician could get reasonably close to the exact harmonies Russ composed. I've used "real book" type lead sheets my whole working life and I certainly understand the underlying principle of the musician being responsible for interpreting the chord symbols and coming up with the appropriate voicings.

In your score above, voicing of the 2 chords have been explicitly laid out already, what benefit does the chord symbols actually offer in addition?

I made a judgment call to write out the intro voicings only â because I thought the interesting and nice sound of that intro was due mostly to the top part of the voicing not changing, only the bass note. I wanted to convey that. And I wrote the chord symbols above because, why not? They're written everywhere else on the chart so I figured I'd put them there too! I know they're not explicitely needed. I often see this in lead sheets where certain voicings are written out â chord symbols are included for consistency. Not to mention that including the written-out intro didn't add to the page count for my chart â it's still two pages. I might have written out the RH voicings only, if including the bass clef pushed the chart to three pages.

The B6/9 notation brings about the exact problem you tried to avoid in the first place, you'll have to mark it as something like B6/9(omit3) to avoid someone playing the Eb note "accidentally".

Yes, another reason for me to write out the voicings!

Even if we do go down the path of using a tool for it unintended purpose, wouldn't F#sus2/B take care of that "omit3" problem more concisely?

That's a fair point, if I hadn't written out the voicings. I wanted the chord symbol to correctly reflect the harmony there. That is most definitely a B6/9.

[Reezekeys]

In context, my view is:

 

The penultimate chord is Cb6/9.

 

The final chord is Gb6/9 | Bb.

 

A plagal cadence with the bass ending on the third.

 

I'm not enough of a theory maven to know if that last chord could be considered the "tonic" â after that chord, the song goes back to the top of a verse section which is more or less in the key of Bb, not Gb. This is one of those tunes where the key centers are swimming around a lot.

 

More to the point, when I see the chord symbol "Gb6/9", the notes I reach for are the ones on the left below (I'll sometimes add the 5th â Db â to that voicing). The notes of the last chord that I need to convey are the ones to the right. Not quite the same sound.

 

[Theo Verelst]

From the Duke-ish sounding example I get the impression the chords are intended to chorus around in such a way to give the singer her voice space to resound with the right intonation, which isn't equally tempered and so when using instruments and effects that should be part of the considrration, which I might try a little when I'm at the instrument, it's a little like how iscan electric piano going to hit that blue note convincingly... Digital that is usually a disaster, unfortunately, and an electronic or organ is going to sound different compared with an acoustic piano playing the same chord sequence, and that's not even talking about timing.

 

T

[linwood]

I just noticed you had a clip of the music and I dl'd and took a listen. If I wanted to give that Bb chord a name I'd go with Bbm7b6. Without hearing it I didn't know he was using 5 up the octave.

[jarrell]

Well "level of precision" is relative, I guess. I wanted to transcribe this tune and write out the chart that I'd like to see: short, simple, yet conveying as much information as possible so another musician could get reasonably close to the exact harmonies Russ composed. I've used "real book" type lead sheets my whole working life and I certainly understand the underlying principle of the musician being responsible for interpreting the chord symbols and coming up with the appropriate voicings.

In your score above, voicing of the 2 chords have been explicitly laid out already, what benefit does the chord symbols actually offer in addition?

I made a judgment call to write out the intro voicings only â because I thought the interesting and nice sound of that intro was due mostly to the top part of the voicing not changing, only the bass note. I wanted to convey that. And I wrote the chord symbols above because, why not? They're written everywhere else on the chart so I figured I'd put them there too! I know they're not explicitely needed. I often see this in lead sheets where certain voicings are written out â chord symbols are included for consistency. Not to mention that including the written-out intro didn't add to the page count for my chart â it's still two pages. I might have written out the RH voicings only, if including the bass clef pushed the chart to three pages.

 

Of course, if you want a specific voicing, you need to write it. One reason to include chord symbols in addition to writing the exact voicing is to say "when you see these chord changes elsewhere in the chart, use this exact voicing" as well as "in general, this tune uses this style of voicing for these types of chords."

 

There is a voicing notation, called top line voicing, that I have really seen only in guitar charts, but I'm sure anybody who saw it in a keyboard chart would get it right away. This article explains it, but basically it involves writing the chord symbol and just the top note of the preferred voicing - that may suffice for many situations. Obviously you can't shoehorn that into a single line lead sheet that has the melody as well, but it works for a rhythm chart.

[linwood]

Sumpin' like this. I know some things are misspelled, but that's how I'd do it. lol Sorry stuff is so darn big

 

[Reezekeys]

There is a voicing notation, called top line voicing, that I have really seen only in guitar charts, but I'm sure anybody who saw it in a keyboard chart would get it right away. This article explains it, but basically it involves writing the chord symbol and just the top note of the preferred voicing - that may suffice for many situations. Obviously you can't shoehorn that into a single line lead sheet that has the melody as well, but it works for a rhythm chart.

I have never heard of this kind of notation, nor have I ever seen a chart with it. I guess I lead a sheltered life! Thanks, this is pretty cool.