Introduction
Jazz music at its best is largely an intuitive process. After all, it’s not what you know, but what you can do with what you know, and in jazz what you know is largely dictated by what you can hear. Some of history’s greatest jazz improvisers were known to be completely intuitive players, yet their solos demonstrate a degree of harmonic logic that eludes other players who may have an advanced intellectual understanding of harmony, but less developed aural skills and imaginations. But genius aside, it’s fair to say that most aspiring jazz musicians seek a knowledge of theory to refine and expand their harmonic/melodic palate and thus bolster the intuitive process.
Typically, a working knowledge of scales and chords comes from small bits of information processed over a fairly long period of time. It may be rote learning by ear of vocabulary that “works,” or applying certain scales to chords simply because we have been taught they go together. For some this is more than sufficient to enable the creation of some great jazz. However, the accumulation of scattered bits of information can also lead one to not see the harmonic “forest through the trees,” resulting in limited command of fundamental harmonic and melodic concepts.
Enter the myriad array of chords and scales encountered in the study of jazz harmony. Contrary to how it may appear (especially to a student just starting out) the chord/scale universe of the twelve-tone system is not widely disparate. In reality, the vast majority of the tonalities we deal with emanate from the seven diatonic modes of the major scale, from modes derived by altering a single tone of the major scale, or reside within the various symmetric scale systems created by equal divisions of the octave.
In the limited time of today’s presentation, we will examine the relationship between the colors of major and melodic minor modes, and how fourteen distinct yet related tonalities are created with one major scale and a single alteration. If we extrapolate to include the modes of harmonic minor and harmonic major, the same major scale with a single altered tone has the capacity to generate fourteen additional jazz chord/scale combinations. When transposed to twelve keys this covers three hundred thirty-six chords. This gives new meaning to the necessity of knowing one’s major scales!
The key is understanding the structures within scales that underpin this phenomenon. In addition to viewing each scale from the root up, knowing how to apply shapes and structures within and across scales enables us to more effectively define sounds and implement vocabulary over a sea of tonalities.
ESSENTIAL DEFINITIONS:
Harmonic System: An asymmetric or symmetric scale that produces a unique set of related scales/chords/harmonies.
Upper Structure: A chord built from a chord tone other than the root. Often termed a “grip” as it relates to the hand on the keyboard
Common Upper Structure: an upper structure that produces essential intervals for multiple chords, often within the same harmonic system
Slash Chord: An upper structure over a bass note
Polychord: An upper structure over another chord
Modality: A set of distinct tonalities and related chord structures generated by an asymmetric scale.
Functional Harmony: Harmony in which tension and release is created by the cycle of fifths and dominant tonic resolutions. Bass alone can be indicative of the progression.
Modal Harmony: Harmony in which tension and release is created by the relative consonance and dissonance of modal key centers. Bass alone is not indicative of the progression.
Essential or Primary Color Tone(s): The interval(s) above the bass) that create the unique structure of each diatonic mode. Created by locating the tritone of the major scale over each modal root:
Ionian (modal): 4, 7
Dorian: b3, 6
Phrygian: b2, 5
Lydian: #4, R (add 7th to differentiate from Locrian)
Mixolydian: 3, b7
Aeolian: 2, b6
Locrian: b5, R (add 7th to differentiate from Lydian)
Upper structure 7th chords in major: Upper structure 7th chords in melodic minor:
maj7#4 (“Lydian”) maj7#4 (“Lydian”)
min7b5 (mi6 inverted) min7b5 (mi6 inverted)
maj7 maj7#5, maj7#4#5
min7 (maj6 inverted) min maj7