![]() ![]() Trad: (Traditional) the Jazz style of the of the early 1900s, known retrospectively as Dixieland. Top: The beginning point of each chorus, the first beat of the first measure. Distinguished from other minor chord functions. ![]() Tonic minor: A scale / chord with a minor 3rd and a major 6th and 7th, generally used for the tonic or home chord in minor keys. May or may not correspond to the written music. Time feel: (1) The subjective impression of which time unit constitutes one beat and how long a bar is. For the piano the word 'touch' is more usual. Students sometimes have trouble developing a real Jazz timbre. Not especially a Jazz term, but note that timbre is one of the basic dimensions of music along with rhythm, melody and harmony. Timbre: Tone quality, characteristic instrumental sound. ![]() A line played by the pianist's left thumb. Thumb line: The Jazz term for 'tenor' (q.v.). The supposed confluence of Jazz and classical music. Third stream: A term coined by Gunther Schuller in the early 50s. For example, the diminished scale is composed of two tetrachords with identical interval constructions. Tetrachord: A four-note portion of a scale. Tenor: The voice above the bass, often that played by the thumb of the left hand. Improving one's technique generally entails practicing exercises that improve one's muscular sensitivity and agility. We will come across the idea of omitting the root and/or 5th of a chord again in later lessons, when we discuss Rootless Chord Voicings and Bud Powell Voicings.Technique: the ability of instrumental and vocal musicians to exert optimal control of their instruments or vocal cords in order to produce the precise musical effects they desire. Bud also added a root note to shell chords to establish the tonality of the chord (CMaj7 = C E B). ![]() This is because Bebop solos are fast and complex, so the chords had to be simple and sparse to stay out of the soloist’s way. In Practiceīebop pianists (circa 1940’s) like Bud Powell used shell chords when accompanying themselves or a soloist. We will explore this further in the next lesson on Chord Substitution. If the next shell chord is B & E (CMaj7) then the prior chord was a G7 whereas if the next shell chord is B♭ & F (G♭Maj7) then the prior chord was a D♭7. And the only way to know whether the shell chord is a G7 or a D♭7 is to look at the next shell chord. For example, playing B & F could be a G7 (3rd & 7th) or D♭7 (7th & 3rd). Playing two notes could indicate a number of different shell chords. By playing so few notes you ‘create space’ for the soloist (or your right hand) to play a faster and more harmonically complex improvisation. A solo is less likely to clash with the harmony if the harmony has fewer notes.Ī topic we will run into many times in the course of these lessons is that of Chord Ambiguity. Shell chords, because you are playing so few notes, are ambiguous.It sounds harmonically strong because you’re emphasising only the two most important notes.As I mentioned above, they are simple – after all, you’re only playing 2 notes.Playing shell chords has the following advantages: This is one of the advantages of shell chords – their simplicity. Only one note needs to move to get from Dm7 to G7 and to get from G7 to CMaj7. Notice how smoothly each chord transitions to the next. Playing a II-V-I in the key of C Major using shell chords would look as follows: Any chord voicing should generally include the 3rd and the 7th of the chord without these the chord will sound incomplete. Shell chords are important because they represent the minimum harmonic material (i.e. This is called a shell chord (because it’s only the shell of the whole chord). C7 – as just E & B♭ (a tritone interval).Well, it’s possible to omit the less important notes (root & 5th) from a chord and only play the guide tones (3rd & 7th) and still retain the original ‘feel’ of the chords. We also learned that each main type of 7th chord has a particular ‘feel’. For example, a CMaj13 chord and a C13 chord (both of which you will come across in practice) both implicitly omit the ♮11 because it is an unavailable tension or avoid note. It’s common practice to omit any unavailable tensions from a chord. In Jazz you don’t always need to play every single note in a chord. The 9th, 11th, and 13th (called Tensions) are even less important.The root and the 5th of a chord are relatively less important.The 3rd and 7th of a chord (called Guide Tones) are the most harmonically important notes because they establish the quality of the chord (i.e.In the previous lesson on Available Tensions, we established that not all notes in a chord are of equal importance. ![]()
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