chords

[EADG mx]

I maintain that learning chords by charts and patterns is relatively useless and limiting. You need to understand how any why chords are constructed, how they function, and how they lead in terms of tonal gravity. Don't take shortcuts and it will pay off.

 

[DocBop]

I maintain that learning chords by charts and patterns is relatively useless and limiting. You need to understand how any why chords are constructed, how they function, and how they lead in terms of tonal gravity. Don't take shortcuts and it will pay off.

+1000

If you know the how to build chords, and know your fretboard you make you own chord voicings and experiment with ways to put them together.

 

[Fergie Fulton]

Hi Binnie, we are at cross purposes here. so let me start at the beginning. Scales are dictated by their intervals as are chords. These intervals are made up of semitones and tones. All the frets on your bass neck are semitones, therefore all the notes next to each other on one string are semitones. It is the order of these intervals in relation to the scale they belong to that dictates the scale or chord not the note, the notes tells you a key. for example the intevals for a majors scale are;
TTS,TTTS T=Tone S= Semitone
so it does not matter where you put this shape of pattern it will always be a major scale. the root(first note) will define its key.
A C major scale is perfect because it has no sharps or flats (a sharp raises a note semitone, a flat lowers a note a semitone). By that we mean if you put a sharp in front of an F it becomes F sharp, put a sharp in front of a B and it become B sharp (even though it is a C in the context of music theory it is now a B sharp) and vica verca when using flats.

Can you now see why learning theory out of order is such a minefield? you have to understand each concept in turn to understand the next. This is a bit like trying to teach you how to land a plane when you know nothing about flying, its not impossible just much harder for all involved. After all what the use of learning to land a plane if you never learned to fly?

So here we go the intervals in a major scale are
TTS,TTTS and these intervals if applied to the key of C are;

C-D major 2nd
C-E major 3rd
C-F perfect 4th
C-G perfect 5th
C-A major 6th
C-B major 7th
C-C octave or unison
It is the use of these intervals that will make your chord major and what type of major chord it is note the notes on ther own. It is the intervals that tell you what note you can use, not the notes telling you the intervals at this point in your learning.(that will all change as you understand more)

So the five main intervals are as follows.

Major -2nds, 3rds, 6ths, 7ths
Minor - major intervals made a chromatic semitome smaller(flatened)
Perfect 4ths 5ths, octave or unison
Diminished-Minor or perfect intervals made a chromatic semitone smaller
Augmented-major or perfect interval made a chromatic semitone larger
That is why shape and patten is a good way to learn because they are uniform in structure and are the foundations of what you need to know in order to create and understand scales and chords, chord come from scales, you must understand scales in order to understand chords. How you fret it or play it is your decision, that is your style, that is you slant on it. What tab does is show you the writers way, his slant on it, so you become a copy of the tab writer. Music in notation tells you the Clef, the time signiture, the key, the tempo and ultimatly lets you palyit how you feel it should be played. If in music you see the notes C, D, E, F you can play the all on the E string, or play them all on the A string, or split the between the A and the D string, the choice is yours to make with all the information you have learned, tab does not give you that freedom to start with it is one writers take on something.

Sorry to go on but you are out of sync and need to understand that there is more to it than i have stated but if you get your head are around major intervals and scales especially C major the next parts all fall in to place far more easily. I have read all the threads and again think is great that so many are helping in a tricky subject, i just hope we're not confusing you and putting you off LOL. Keep at it and apply what you learn as you go along.

 

[Jake of Bass]

Augmented-major or perfect interval made a chromatic semitone larger

Isn't an augmented chord simply the 5th raised?
When are other scale degrees ever considered augmented? I ask because to my knowledge the only time augmentation is used is to sharpen the 5th. Everything else is spot on though.

 

[Binnie]

OK so completely backstepping to intervals, A major scale consists of TTS, TTTS

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
|_| = Major 2nd (M2)... T

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
|___| = Major 3rd (M3) T

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
|____| = Perfect 4th (P4) S

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
|______| = Perfect 5th (P5) T

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
|_______| = Major 6th (M6) T

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
|_________| = Major 7th (M7) T

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
|___________| = Perfect 8th, or Octave (P8) S

---------------------------------------

Minor is TST, TSTT?

C - D (C C# D) T
D - Eb (D Eb) S
Eb - F (Eb E F) T
F - G (F F# G) T
G - Ab (G Ab) S
Ab - Bb (Ab A Bb) T
Bb - C (Bb b C) T

 

[Fergie Fulton]

A major 5th is perfect, so if you augment it you add, and if you diminish you take away. so in music theory when we augment we add something, and when we diminish we take away. As Minor intervals are major intervals made a chromatic semitone smaller, diminishing a minor is like double flat from the major. When we create a minor scale we do so from the major, we simply flatten the 3rd and 6th that gives us a tonic minor scale.

So if you take Cmajor scale and flatten the 3rd and 6th you have C tonic minor scale. That is not all of it, its just the start. We now start to open the door of melodic and harmonic minor scales, other modes and scales which have been mentioned in previous threads, triads, arpeggios, tetrachord, cycle of fifths etc. etc.

Sorry if i seem stand offish with some of this but you have to start at the beginning understand the natural order and rules to get an understanding of the beauty of music theory.
Why you learn it and where you learn it, how much of it you use or not use is up to the individual and what they want to achieve in there playing.
This is where Jeff Berlin and i agree and disagree. Yes music theory is being dumbed down and put in to bite sizes, but thats whats brought you to where you are now Binnie, looking for more information, trying to understand it. All the people on this site will and more importantly are willing to help you, while Jeffs way is "no comprimise" and what we're doing is wrong and of no use. If you get something out of this it has been useful and correct. Its up to you to decide how far you want to take it.

 

[Richard Lindsey]

Isn't an augmented chord simply the 5th raised?
When are other scale degrees ever considered augmented? I ask because to my knowledge the only time augmentation is used is to sharpen the 5th. Everything else is spot on though.

As Fergie said, any major or perfect interval that's raised a semitone becomes an augmented interval. Thus, C-F is a perfect 4th, but C-F# is an augmented 4th (or, in some chords, and augmented 11th). This is quite common. C-D is a major 2nd, but C-D# is an augmented 2nd (or, depending on the voicing of chord and how you want to hear it, an augmented 9th), also pretty common. You could also have intervals like C-E# (augmented 3rd), C-A# (augmented 6th), or even C-B# (augmented 7th). Some of these of course will be more frequently encountered than others!

I think you might be mixing up (1) augmentation as a way of creating certain types of chords starting from the major scale (which happens largely with 5ths, 9ths, and 11ths IME) and (2) augmentation as a pure description of an absolute interval, or distance, between two given notes, irrespective of the chord (which is the correct way to describe many intervals in many different chords). Those are two different things.

Re (2), as an example, suppose you're playing a common D7 voicing on the guitar, where the notes go, from low to high, D A C F#. In this voicing, the interval D-A is a perfect 5th, A-C is a minor 3rd, and C-F# is an augmented 4th. So in what you're playing, you have an actual augmented interval happening. If you consider the notes purely in chord-building-block terms, however, as in (1), you have D F# A C, which in relation to the major scale is 1 3 5 b7--meaning that from the root (D), you have a major 3rd (F#), a perfect 5th (A), and a minor 7th (C). Thus, you are not augmenting any major scale degrees to get the notes of the chord, but depending on how you voice the chord, actual augmented intervals may exist. Again, two different things.

 

[Jake of Bass]

With this in mind I think I have never seen an aug9, or any other scale degree other than a perfect 5th (there is no such thing as either a major 5th or 4th, as neither of these scale degrees in their perfect form implies major harmony or tonality - this is something that was taught to me quite explicitly who is well known in Australian jazz circles when I wrote down it being a major 5th).

I can see how the aug 4 works, but any other scale tone is written differently, from my understanding. Why would you write an augmented 3rd? Or 6th? Or 7th? You'd just write a 4th, dom 7 and octave, respectively. Aug 2nd... I've only seen it written as #9.

Not trying to be difficult, it's just over almost 10 years of reading jazz charts I can't recall ever seeing an augmented chord that altered anything other than a 5th.

Having said this, in what instances would you write any other chord tone as augmented, without writing the same note in a different form? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just wanting to learn something I may be missing.

 

[Jake of Bass]

Ok, I just read up and there are some altered chords that might be written: E7+9 instead of E7#9.

When talking about an augmented chord, you construct it with the root, major third and sharp fifth.

 

[Binnie]

a perfect 5th "is the musical interval between a note and the note seven semitones above it on the musical scale."

meaning the I II III IV "V" note in every scale? or the only natural notes?


diminished fifth is "MINus" flats?

augmented fifth is "ADd" sharps?


was looking at this diagram :

Here is an example using the perfect 5th interval. Here you are trying to play the interval of a perfect 5th (within normal reaching distance.... about 4 frets) in 2 different places.

"http://www.cyberfretbass.com/theory/intervals/images/th_intervals_notes_bottom3_p5.gif"

if the top note of the interval (E) is to the right of the root, then you need to find the top note on the next highest string (to the left). If the top note of the interval is to the left of the root, then you need to find the top note on the next lowest string (to the right).

this part through me off a bit.

 

[Fergie Fulton]

Not trying to be difficult, it's just over almost 10 years of reading jazz charts I can't recall ever seeing an augmented chord that altered anything other than a 5th.

You're not being difficult, your asking relevent points. My answers are from my education which was a classical music education. I studied till i was 16 on brass instruments with the Scottish Symphony Youth Orchestra. I turned down various scholarships to become a profesional bass player. It was my training that allowed me to move forward. But i had to learn to keep it to myself in many respects as i was amazed at how many people in the music business did not understand or read music.

Music genres to today bring up questions of notation the classical music cannot notate. Music has moved so fast in the last 50 years, unfortunatly musicians and notation has lost its standardisation. When in the past composers tried something new they developed the notation themselves and it was accepted as part of the theory. We forget that in classical music there wher composers who were at odds with the normal thinking of their times and were deemed fools. These fools have gave us some of the greatest music ever.

With effect pedals, slap, two handed taping,4, 6, 8, string instruments, tremolo bends, etc, Tab has become the standard way to write modern guitar music, i have no problems with that. What we don't have are a writing set of rules and order for tab in the way music has in theory. Tab in my mind should be part of theory, in the same way that the other modes were taken as part of it. How to do it and how much is relevent i have no idea as it is taught in so many forms how could it be standardised.

Thats why forms like this are important. In the few taps of a key i have access to thinking and ideas from around the world. Its my education and knowledge that works out whether it has relevence to me, if it has i add it, if it does not i dismiss it, and if i don't understand i question it.

I was taught a clever man will question something he does not understand a dozen times and look foolish. A stupid man who does not understand will question nothing so as to seem clever.
Its better to be underrated than overated.

 

[Jake of Bass]

Binnie:

A perfect 5th is an interval in pitch. So playing the "A" on the diagram, as the root, the note E above and in the same octave is a perfect 5th. You can choose whereabouts to play it on the neck, but it's the pitch that's the important part. The red "E" notes are the same pitch, just on different strings (play them and you'll see, but you most likely new this ages ago).

In most situations you would play the "E" on the 7th fret of the A string. As far as the shape goes, on a bass in standard tuning, this interval is transferable across the entire neck, so any given note that is the root, playing that same physical instrument (One string down, two frets up) will always give you a perfect 5th. Try to learn the note and not just the shape.

 

[Jake of Bass]

I was taught a clever man will question something he does not understand a dozen times and look foolish. A stupid man who does not understand will question nothing so as to seem clever.
Its better to be underrated than overated.

That's great, and oh so true.

 

[Richard Lindsey]

With this in mind I think I have never seen an aug9, or any other scale degree other than a perfect 5th (there is no such thing as either a major 5th or 4th, as neither of these scale degrees in their perfect form implies major harmony or tonality - this is something that was taught to me quite explicitly who is well known in Australian jazz circles when I wrote down it being a major 5th).

I can see how the aug 4 works, but any other scale tone is written differently, from my understanding. Why would you write an augmented 3rd? Or 6th? Or 7th? You'd just write a 4th, dom 7 and octave, respectively. Aug 2nd... I've only seen it written as #9.

Not trying to be difficult, it's just over almost 10 years of reading jazz charts I can't recall ever seeing an augmented chord that altered anything other than a 5th.

Having said this, in what instances would you write any other chord tone as augmented, without writing the same note in a different form? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just wanting to learn something I may be missing.

Again, I think you're mixing up alterations of scale tones with intervals. Two different things. An augmented chord and an augmented interval are NOT the same thing (though the former may include the latter). Forget about augmented chords for a minute.

Intervals are absolute measures of distance between any two given notes, not just between a chord tone and its root. C-D#, in the same octave, is always and everywhere an interval of an augmented 2nd, no matter what chord it occurs in. That D#, on the other hand, may or may not represent an augmented scale tone. Suppose you had a B7b9 chord, voiced B F# A C D# from bottom to top. None of the scale tones of that chord represented augmented degrees relative to a major scale built from the root (B), yet the interval between the C and the D# is still inescapably an augmented interval (augmented 2nd).

Also, when you do actually have augmentations of scale tones, it doesn't matter in the slightest whether it's conventional to write these augmented chord tones with a "+" or not. The augmented chord, with the plus sign, is only one special case of the use of augmented scale degrees. Even though the #11 is usually written with a sharp, it is in fact an augmented 11th (or 4th, if you prefer) relative to the root.

You've seen augmented 9ths all the time, even if you didn't think so. A #9 chord actually includes an augmented 9th (e.g., C E G Bb D#), even if it's not always written that way.

 

[Richard Lindsey]

When talking about an augmented chord, you construct it with the root, major third and sharp fifth.

Technically, root, major 3rd, and augmented 5th. Or, as an alternative, a major 3rd (e.g., C-E) followed by another major 3rd (e.g., E-G#).

 

[Fergie Fulton]

With this in mind I think I have never seen an aug9, or any other scale degree other than a perfect 5th (there is no such thing as either a major 5th or 4th, as neither of these scale degrees in their perfect form implies major harmony or tonality - this is something that was taught to me quite explicitly who is well known in Australian jazz circles when I wrote down it being a major 5th).

Your not wrong it is a major 5th. What we have here is a point of theory. Much in the same way we all speak English, sitting and passing and English Degree is beyond most of us, but we all communicate in speech and in writing day to day with no problems.
That is the problem with teaching sorting out what is relevent and what is not, how much you should know and how much you need to know. I believe the information you need to know is more important the the information you should know.

PS.
For some reason i keep getting logged out and end up out of sync with some thread questions and replies.

 

[Binnie]

intervals, A major scale consists of TTS, TTTS
Minor is TST, TSTT

So how would you go about working out the intervals with say a Diminished Chord.

A C Eb

 

[Richard Lindsey]

I can see how the aug 4 works, but any other scale tone is written differently, from my understanding. Why would you write an augmented 3rd? Or 6th? Or 7th? You'd just write a 4th, dom 7 and octave, respectively. Aug 2nd... I've only seen it written as #9.

Again, forget about scale tones for a minute. You would write those intervals when that's the correct way of representing the distance between a given set of notes.

Here's an example: imagine you have an F#7b5 chord, but it's voiced F# C A# E. C-A# is an augmented 6th interval. There are no augmented scale degrees in that chord, but there is an augmented interval in that voicing. That's the correct way of writing it, and you wouldn't write the A# as Bb if you were on the ball.

As for augmented 3rds, you hear them all the time in 7#9 chords. C E G Bb D#--the interval Bb-D# is an augmented 3rd. (It has to be written D# if it's truly a #9, though I sometimes wonder if it isn't better thought of as a b10... especially since the note can so easily go to a b9....).

I admit augmented 7ths would be harder to find, but I can't say it would never be done.

 

[Jake of Bass]

intervals, A major scale consists of TTS, TTTS
Minor is TST, TSTT

So how would you go about working out the intervals with say a Diminished Chord.

A C Eb

Think of a diminished chord as minor thirds stacked.

A C Eb Gb


Augmented chords are major thirds stacked.

A C# E# (you'd look at it as being E# because you're augmenting the fifth, which is E natural).

 

[Jake of Bass]

Your not wrong it is a major 5th. What we have here is a point of theory. Much in the same way we all speak English, sitting and passing and English Degree is beyond most of us, but we all communicate in speech and in writing day to day with no problems.
That is the problem with teaching sorting out what is relevent and what is not, how much you should know and how much you need to know. I believe the information you need to know is more important the the information you should know.

I understand where you're coming from, as far as language is concerned because I had it with the augmented thing a couple posts back, but how it was explained to me does make sense.

I'm doing some reading and it suggests that calling a 4th and 5th as being 'major' is incorrect. They are indeed considered 'perfect' and the difference in terminology is considered to be the same as if you were calling a 'major' interval 'minor'.

The intervals that are perfect are so called because they have a certain purity about them that comes from the overtones and upper-partials that are contained within them (these will be explained in another article)

Intervals can be raised or lowered by a half-step/semitone. If a major interval is chromatically reduced by a half-step it becomes a minor interval e.g. C-E is a major 3rd, if it is lowered by a half-step (from C-Eb) the interval becomes a minor 3rd.

If a perfect interval is chromatically reduced by a half-step it becomes a diminished interval i.e. a perfect 4th lowered by a half-step becomes a diminished 4th.

If major or perfect intervals are raised by a half-step then they become an augmented interval i.e. a perfect 5th would become an augmented 5th.

http://www.articledashboard.com/Art...really-not-that-hard-to-figure-it-out-/591963

Wiki of course has some interesting stuff about intervals.

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