This week, we’ll be discussing altered chords and altered scales…you know, for all of you jazz buffs out there.
As I’ve stated before, a major concept in music is the oscillation between tension and release. Chords which often create tension in music are dominant chords (major chords with a flat seven). Dissonance is created between the major third and the flat seven, which sit a tritone apart. The chord wants to be resolved, most likely to a stable major or minor chord. While the standard dominant seventh chord produced adequate tension for many classical composers of centuries past, jazz musicians of the twentieth century simply were not satisfied. They wanted more. Hence, the altered dominant chord was born.
Altered dominant chords are extended chords, reaching into the territory of ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths. We’ve discussed these upper extensions before. To create an altered chord, we begin with the standard dominant chord–root, major third, fifth, flat seventh. Then, we add upper extensions. Then, we alter the fifth and/or the upper extensions by a half-step (and likely drop the fifth in our voicing). Some common C altered dominant chords are pictured below:
Or, if we’d like to get a little crazier:
Seems complicated right? These chords will become a lot easier to work with once we discuss the altered scale.
The altered scale is as follows:
This is the scale which many jazz musicians use to solo over altered chords. In sequence, it includes the flat ninth, sharp ninth, major third, sharp eleventh, flat thirteenth, and flat seventh.
This is perhaps the more “traditional” way of thinking about the upper reaches of tension. When attempting to create a lot of dissonance, I prefer to conceptualize it as clumping a bunch of notes together which clash, yet all can move smoothly into a resolving chord by motion of a half or whole step. This is laid out brilliantly by Jacob Collier, a young British musician and music theory wizard who you should check out if you enjoy this blog.
For example, let’s look at a perfect cadence from G to C. With the G note in the bass, I can put any note I want above it…as long as it resolves nicely to C. Above the G, I can use an F#, Ab, Eb, C#, D, Bb–you name it. Together, these notes are extremely dissonant, but can move in tandem to notes within the C major 7 chord, creating a satisfying resolution. F# and Ab can move to G, Eb to E, Bb to B, C# to C. There’s an infinite number of dissonant combinations which can resolve to a stable major or minor chord with stepwise motion.
Just how “altered” can we get? The choice is up to you.
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