Double Bass #9 or b10?

[DoubleMIDI]

Chord notation conventions simply not theoretically correct. It is a shorthand notation what notes should be played (with some rules for omissions). It evolved over time and since jazz musicians often have a very loose connection to music theory (enharmonics are not the same note nor do they have the same function), notation evolving from that state of mind cannot be expected to be theoretically correct.

It is not only the #9 vs. b10, but as well the #5 vs. b13 (a raised fifth means no pure fifth, otherwise it would not be raised) and sometimes even the b5 vs. the #11.

Even handwritten big band bass parts in rather basic keys have wrong enharmonics notated which makes unnecessarily difficult to understand the underlying chords by following the written notes. And this was not to avoid double accidentals nor to notate a simpler readable note.

Personally I try to write theoretically correct note names because it would be easier to improvise if you know the correct place in the scale and understand the function better but often get criticized for this.
If things get complicated, I use “simplifications” in big band parts that do not have to improvise but the correct ones throughout the whole part for the improvisers. Can be a bit mixing by up in the score and for the band leader, but it is a compromise that makes sense to me (and getting a bit less complaints).

@dreamadream99 remark (2) is correct for 7-note scales.
8-note scales, the „symmetrical“ ones (that are in no mathematical sense are symmetrical but have repetitive substructures) need one basic note name doubled, but they are rather artificial constructions.

Scales with two consecutive halftone steps have them only around the root or fifth of the tonic as they are leading notes to them. So (in general) modes of these scales don’t work as leading notes to the root and fifth of the tonic.
More than two consecutive halftone steps are simply an enrichment of possibilities, in almost any case a mixture from several scales where only one scale at a time is used (but fast switching between them is possible but generates disorientation).

Key signatures evolved rather early from medieval church scales (including Ionian aka major and aeolian aka natural minor). Accidentals followed some rules then and seldom were written out, so the key signatures evolved from that.
But more modern classical composers do use non-standard key signatures to avoid a lot of repeated accidentals, just not very often and only if it makes sense over a longer part of music.

 

[JonathanPDX]

I don't really see what the problem is with calling at a 7#9. The core of the chord is a dominant voicing and the extension adds a #9 on top, which covers all the rules of writing a chord (which, as noted, is different than the rules for writing a key signature or a scale.) The chord is at it's heart a dominant chord and removing that tritone is going to change the entire function of the chord, and it's relationship to the root, far more than anything you get from raising the 9.

If we're talking G7#9 we have G as the root and B, D, F, and A# above it. What are other options and why would any of them be preferable? I really don't see an alternative that serves the same function and isn't either way more complicated to write out, or needs some notes in the margin to explain what you're actually trying to accomplish (which is a 7#9).

 

[Steve Freides]

I guess I need to say that my question in starting this thread was rhetorical. I'm about as big a believer in the "rules" we're discussing as you'll find on planet Earth. I was taught them, I taught them, and I still teach them. TL;DR - I buy multiple copies of the 2nd edition (early 1990's) of "Harmony and Voice Leading" by Ed Aldwell and Carl Schachter, which usually cost between $5 and $10, and "sell" them to many of my private instrumental students for $5, and we work through at least the first 5 chapters. The book reflects the thinking of Heinrich Schenker - look him up if you aren't familiar with him. I have "lineage" here - Schenker taught Felix Salzer, who co-authored a text book with Carl Schachter that I also learned from, and Carl was one of my teachers. Schenkerian music analysis comes as close as anything I've ever encountered to explaining why music is magic - it's brilliant, part head and part heart, stuff. It's just that's of gradually increasing less use in understanding music composed after about 1880.

Yes, chord name are shorthands, just like figured bass is (speaking of rules and old stuff). I'm fine with all that. #9 instead of b10 is a convention we've all learned to live with and we all understand that it's written #9 but sounds like b10, at least to most of us, and probably all of us. I'm good with all that.

I teach a bunch of instruments, and every year I'm helping my middle and high school students get ready for their jazz band auditions, and there's the blues scale that, in C, has both an F and an F# in it - go figure! And it's called a scale!! To my ears, it's a pentatonic scale - wait, a scale that doesn't include one of every letter of the music alphabet!!! - with one extra note, a sharp 4th degree. And they play it up to the Bb, not the C, as the top note. It really breaks a lot of rules.

To quote an old song lyric: the world is funny, and people are strange, and man is a creature of constant change ... (Extra credit to anyone who knows the song without looking it up.)

I appreciate all the interesting responses in this thread and the thinking behind them. How about if we have a scale that's more than an octave long? I think that might solve the problem.

-S-

 

[Lionel Albert]

Again ?

 

[brianrost]

I’ve never heard anybody use the term b10 before.

Never forget the musician’s motto from the lyrics of the 1962 Irma Thomas song "Somebody Told You" written by Allen Toussaint: “If you don't see sharp you might be flat."

 

[DrummerwStrings]

I guess my point is that I've never heard a #9 that sounds to me like a #9. An added 9th sounds like it's name, and a b9 does, too, and I think I'd say that for about everything else along these lines. But a #9 sounds like a b10 to my ears and it always has, and I guess that's my point.

One of my bass students was working on something pretty chromatic and at one point, the music went from A# up to D. I suppose that, in a tonal context, e.g., B harmonic minor, that would sound like a diminished 4th, but just hearing it as a couple of notes, it struck me as a major 3rd. Play the chord F#-A#-E with a D in the next octave for an example. My point, such as it is, goes like this:

Context matters, see my above example of dim 4 or M3.

I've never heard a #9 in a chord that doesn't sound like a b10. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

-S-

Could it be that when you (& I) first learned to identify chords & notes, you learned about minor before augmented? There’s also a lot of popular music that’s minor for new students to notice & reinforce what they just learned - my guess is minor chords were probably learned first, so it’s the answer that comes to mind first. I don’t know if there’s any science that’s been done to support/contradict the guess.

 

[Tom Lane]

Thanks everyone for your explanations. I'll summarize them by saying that the "rules" didn't include 8-note scales - which seems like an oversight because of the diminished scale which must have been invented hundreds of years ago. So, those rules are out-dated and incompetent to deal with music of the 20th century and probably much of the music in the 19th century. A #9 is a common notation that everyone is familiar with, a kind of short-hand for a pitch that logically is a b10. At the end of the day, there are no hard and fast rules in music and you're free to use the nomenclature that you think is best, hopefully placing legibility and ease-of-comprehension as high priorities.

 

[james condino]

......since jazz musicians often have a very loose connection to music theory.......

 

[the_Ryan]

Thanks everyone for your explanations. I'll summarize them by saying that the "rules" didn't include 8-note scales - which seems like an oversight because of the diminished scale which must have been invented hundreds of years ago. So, those rules are out-dated and incompetent to deal with music of the 20th century and probably much of the music in the 19th century. A #9 is a common notation that everyone is familiar with, a kind of short-hand for a pitch that logically is a b10. At the end of the day, there are no hard and fast rules in music and you're free to use the nomenclature that you think is best, hopefully placing legibility and ease-of-comprehension as high priorities.

I think the #9 in a chord progression that follows the conventions of jazz theory up until after bebop is different than a b10 despite a G7#9 sounding like a chord with both a minor and major third. The effect on our ear is the same (much like an augmented 6th chord, which is really just a funnily-spelled dominant 7, but it resolves differently than a regular dominant 7), but the G7#9 chord has dominant function and calling it a b10 in my opinion obscures that function. Again, I don't want to say the #9 is an unimportant note because that note would resolve to an A or B in the following C chord (probably C6, Cmaj7, Cmin6, or Cminmaj7) and it adds a very strong color to the G7 chord, but calling the #9 a b3/b10 doesn't tell me what the function of the chord is. If the chart isn't really based on that type of functional harmony I do think #9 is probably just the cleanest way to notate that type of chord though since most players reading chord charts are used to seeing alterations to the 9 and not the 3.

 

[mambo4]

Never remember seeing a b10

I’ve never heard anybody use the term b10 before.

same

I have no idea the reasoning behind calling it a #9 rather than a b10 except for brevity and laziness.

ease of communication and avoiding mistakes with experienced players.
some "rules" are arbitrary 17th century European dogma
but many "rules" are conventions for ease of communication and reading.
a b10 on a chart would give me pause , I have never seen it, a #9 less so.

does that mean #9 is more correct? No.
but it does make that description more pragmatic.

Just because we are dancing about architecture doesn't mean we throw out practical usefulness.

 

[InhumanResource]

Chord notation conventions simply not theoretically correct. It is a shorthand notation what notes should be played (with some rules for omissions). It evolved over time and since jazz musicians often have a very loose connection to music theory (enharmonics are not the same note nor do they have the same function), notation evolving from that state of mind cannot be expected to be theoretically correct.

It is not only the #9 vs. b10, but as well the #5 vs. b13 (a raised fifth means no pure fifth, otherwise it would not be raised) and sometimes even the b5 vs. the #11.

Even handwritten big band bass parts in rather basic keys have wrong enharmonics notated which makes unnecessarily difficult to understand the underlying chords by following the written notes. And this was not to avoid double accidentals nor to notate a simpler readable note.

Personally I try to write theoretically correct note names because it would be easier to improvise if you know the correct place in the scale and understand the function better but often get criticized for this.
If things get complicated, I use “simplifications” in big band parts that do not have to improvise but the correct ones throughout the whole part for the improvisers. Can be a bit mixing by up in the score and for the band leader, but it is a compromise that makes sense to me (and getting a bit less complaints).

@dreamadream99 remark (2) is correct for 7-note scales.
8-note scales, the „symmetrical“ ones (that are in no mathematical sense are symmetrical but have repetitive substructures) need one basic note name doubled, but they are rather artificial constructions.

Scales with two consecutive halftone steps have them only around the root or fifth of the tonic as they are leading notes to them. So (in general) modes of these scales don’t work as leading notes to the root and fifth of the tonic.
More than two consecutive halftone steps are simply an enrichment of possibilities, in almost any case a mixture from several scales where only one scale at a time is used (but fast switching between them is possible but generates disorientation).

Key signatures evolved rather early from medieval church scales (including Ionian aka major and aeolian aka natural minor). Accidentals followed some rules then and seldom were written out, so the key signatures evolved from that.
But more modern classical composers do use non-standard key signatures to avoid a lot of repeated accidentals, just not very often and only if it makes sense over a longer part of music.

In your example I think the #9 is way easier to think about (at least for me) than b10. The reason is that the Logic of the chord symbol defines the triad and 7th first, then the extension second.

As an example, if I’m reading a chart that says G7#9, I’m thinking exactly this: G7 with an A# stuck on top, and expecting to hear the same.

If I see a chart that says G7b10 I’m thinking, ok…G7 which has a B natural but also a Bb in the upper extension? That’s kind of weird, why wouldn’t they be distinct notes? There is already a B in G7 and it’s natural, that other note needs to be something else. It seems like kind of a bizarre way to write it.

 

[Wasnex]

A #9 is a common notation that everyone is familiar with, a kind of short-hand for a pitch that logically is a b10.

I see it a bit different. In the context of the way the altered scale is used over an alt Dominants, IMHO it's logically a #9. However, if you were to reanalyze the scale over a functional #vii7b5, I believe the chord third would be minor and you would notate the major 3rd as a b11; rather than a #10. Something like: G#-7b5 add(b9,b11,b13). Consider this #vii7b5 in A melodic minor. IMHO the chord notation seems incredibly messy but all tones are diatonic (G#,A,B,C,D,E,F#).

There is nothing other than convention stopping your from using b10. But IMHO doing so does not make things easier or more clear. Pretty much every article I remember reading about the altered scale had discontinuities between the defined scale intervals and the way the author actually thought of some written notes. I would not be surprised to see examples where people translate #9 to b10 when transcribing the notes. But, I think it's better to stick with convention.

 

[dreamadream99]

If you don't see sharp you might be flat

But see, even that’s wrong. C sharp and B flat are not enharmonics. So what would work?

1. If you don’t B sharp you might C flat. No. Even that’s not right.
2. If you don’t C flat you might B natural. Enharmonically correct, but it doesn’t make grammatical sense.
3. If you don’t B flat you might A sharp. True, but not funny at all.
4. If you don’t B sharp you might C. Well, I can see, whether I’m smart or not.
5. If you don’t B double sharp, you might C sharp. Huh?

I think it’s a lost cause…

 

[logdrum]

I 've always written it as a #9 on the chord sheet but think and write it as a b10 if arpeggiated or as part of a melodic transcription. I am not schooled like you and Don.

So Denis Di Blasio who played with Maynard Ferguson (I do play baritone sax myself) has these Fermata drills, where you voice all these extensions. It's a good thing to apply to bass as well.. He also uses Fermata in a different context. One of those jazz violations of formal music theory as is the #9 conundrum

 

[Papageno]

Here is what Hein van de Geyn (bass player of Chet Baker) writes about this in his excellent and thorough "Comprehensive Bass Method for Jazz Players":

 

[JBarz]

Here is what Hein van de Geyn (bass player of Chet Baker) writes about this in his excellent and thorough "Comprehensive Bass Method for Jazz Players":

View attachment 7172446

I can’t unsee this page that makes so much sense, dang it. I was happy as can be with my #9s before this thread…

 

[dreamadream99]

I can’t unsee this page that makes so much sense, dang it. I was happy as can be with my #9s before this thread…

He does make his case well.

 

[Papageno]

The same issue of incorrect spelling of enharmonic #5 vs b13 or #11 vs b5 in chord symbols arises all the time in charts or Realbooks.

Yes, I know that enharmonic notes sound the same, but:
You zing prop erspel ling m@kesunder stendingso mutcheezier...

 

[LordRyan]

In a dominant 7th the next extension is a 9th which can be flat or sharp which would notated as C9, C7b9, or C7#9 as the case may be. If no 7th is present then it would more likely be notated as Csus2 or Cadd9. In a chord notated as C11 or C13 the 7th is assumed to be included and the 5th or 9th can be omitted.

 

[dreamadream99]

In a chord notated as C11 or C13…the 5th or 9th can be omitted.

That doesn’t sound right either. If there is no 9th in a C11, isn’t that just a C7(add 11). I always believed that unless noted otherwise, a root followed by an extension number (7, 9, 11, or 13) included all previous extensions. Or do you just mean the way it is voiced by a jazz pianist?