Now it’s time to take a closer look at those notes you can add to a chord to add some “color.” Sure, straight Major and minor chords sound just fine as they are, but after a while you may find that they sound kind of predictable and perhaps even a bit boring. In Part One of this discussion of chord colors I used the examples of adding the 6th and/or the 9thabove the root of the chord to add some interest. These are extremely common in modern acoustic singer/songwriter songs and I urge you to learn some chord progressions that use them. Something like this (again, using the key of G Major for the example because it’s so common):
I chord: G6 (G, B, D, E)
II chord: Am9 (A, C, E, B)
III chord: Bm9 (B, D, F#, C)
IV chord: C6 (C, E, G, A)
V chord: D6 (D, F#, A, B)
VI chord: Em9 (E, G, B, F#)
Ah, but then we come to the VII chord. Remember how last time I said we were going to “do something” to the naturally occurring VII chord, which is diminished? Well, in much of modern acoustic singer/songwriter type music that VII chord is changed ever so slightly to become something called the “flat seven” written as: bVII. What is it, and why is this done? Because quite frankly I just don’t think many modern acoustic singer/songwriters like the sound of a diminished chord! Jazz players? Another story entirely. The vast majority of jazz tunes use diminished and diminished 7th chords. But not many acoustic singer/songwriters use them (although James Taylor is an example of one who does). In the most basic sense, I think that most players and listeners are most comfortable with the sound of a Major chord. So what writers have done is take the root of that naturally occurring VII chord (diminished) and LOWERED the root by ½ step. The result? A Major chord! Again using the key of G Major for our examples, this means that the VII chord (F#dim) changes into an F Major! So now the scale line triads (chords built of using ONLY notes in the key, except for that bVII chord) looks like this:
I: G Major
II: A minor
III: B minor
IV: C Major
V: D Major
VI: A minor
VII: F Major
Now, by doing just that series (without adding other colors like the 6 and 9) we have inserted one chord, the flat VII that includes a F natural…..NOT an F#, as would be found in the Major Diatonic Scale in G Major. Just that one note in that one chord (F Major) makes that chord sound “different” and certainly interesting compared to the predictability of straight scale-line chords. Try this. Play the I – IV – V – I progression in G Major (G, C, D, G). Sounds really familiar, doesn’t it? And comfortable. Now play the I – IV – bVII – I progression (G, C, F, G). Hear how that F Major demands our attention? That’s because the root of that chord is NOT in the key of G Major. And that, my friends, is what chord “colors” are all about! It is not a radical color because the rest of the chord (A & C) are in the key of G Major but that F natural is certainly…..different. If you want to use the bVII chord in ANY key, just go to the naturally occurring 7thtone in any key, lower that note in ½ step (“flat” it!) and assume that it the “first name” or root of a Major chord. Simple as that!
Just how much coloring you want to add to your chords is totally subjective, and that’s where your creativity and how many chances you’re willing to take comes into play. Theoretically, you could add ANY note to ANY chord for color but you would pretty quickly discover that some sound just awful! There is a well-known story about the world premier if Igor Stravinsky’s famous Firebird Suite. Stravinsky was the first major composer to use lots of dissonance in his music (notes that clashed with the key) and the piece was so disturbing to the audience that there was a riot. You probably won’t cause a riot by inserting radical color notes into your chords, but be prepared for a negative reaction by both the listeners and yourself! This brings us to the most important part of understanding the use of “colors” in your chords: Dissonance and resolution.
Notes that are very close to each other, say, a half step apart, sound pretty awful to our ears. This is called dissonance. Press down on the 4th fret of your 2nd (B) string, then play your 1st and 2nd strings at the same time. Ooooo, that’s AWFUL! Dissonance occurs when two notes that are very close together are played at the same time. But here’s the cool part. If two letter named notes, say a F# and a G, are separated by some distance, perhaps close to an active, they don’t sound so bad at all. In fact, it is a color that has a lot of interest to our ears and can sound very pleasing. The most common example the Major 7th chord. A GMaj7 is made up of these notes:
G B D F#
Obviously, when thinking about the note names in order being “circular” – A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, etc. we can see that inside the GMaj7 we have an F# and a G…. a half-step apart, so they should be dissonant, right? But in all the commonly played inversions of GMaj7, there is a wide separation between the G and the F#. So – when “padded” with the other notes in the chord in between you hardly hear the dissonance at all! The point is – inserting a note into a chord that is inherently dissonant when played with the next note in sequence in the key can sound very interesting IF there is some distance between those two notes.
But what about a note that really sticks out? One that has the potential to sound just…..wrong. Songwriters have dealt with this by “resolving” that bad or wrong sounding note in the following chord. The best example I know of this is the Beatles classic “In My Life.” Half way through third measure of the song (in the key of G Major), John Lennon who wrote the song goes from a C Major to a C minor. That C minor chord uses an Eb in it, instead of the E natural found in the C Major, which is of course entirely constructed of notes in the key of G Major. For a brief moment, that Eb inside the C minor sounds dark, disturbing….but after only two beats on that chord, John “resolves” that dissonance by changing to the best sounding chord of all, the I chord, which is G Major. Our music brains go…..ahhhhhh……THAT’S better!!! The genius of this is that the resolution is accomplished by only moving inside the chord to the next by a half-step. A G Major chord is composed of these notes: G, B, D. So what John did over the course of three chords (C Major, C minor, G Major) was only move backwards in half steps: E – the 3rd of the C Major, to Eb – the 3rdof the C minor, to D, which is the 5th of the G Major! That is nothing short of simple genius in popular music and had rarely been heard before in that context.
I could cite many other examples of tension and resolution, dissonance resolved by a very small change from one chord to the next. As you explore adding notes to standard Major and minor chords, remember to not lean on your new colors too much; your ears will love the variety but in the end they want to go home again. But don’t let that stop you! Fool around. Add new notes to chords. I’ll bet you’ll find some very interesting sounds and your guitar playing – and your ear – will be better for it!
Peace & good music,
Gene
I chord: G6 (G, B, D, E)
II chord: Am9 (A, C, E, B)
III chord: Bm9 (B, D, F#, C)
IV chord: C6 (C, E, G, A)
V chord: D6 (D, F#, A, B)
VI chord: Em9 (E, G, B, F#)
Ah, but then we come to the VII chord. Remember how last time I said we were going to “do something” to the naturally occurring VII chord, which is diminished? Well, in much of modern acoustic singer/songwriter type music that VII chord is changed ever so slightly to become something called the “flat seven” written as: bVII. What is it, and why is this done? Because quite frankly I just don’t think many modern acoustic singer/songwriters like the sound of a diminished chord! Jazz players? Another story entirely. The vast majority of jazz tunes use diminished and diminished 7th chords. But not many acoustic singer/songwriters use them (although James Taylor is an example of one who does). In the most basic sense, I think that most players and listeners are most comfortable with the sound of a Major chord. So what writers have done is take the root of that naturally occurring VII chord (diminished) and LOWERED the root by ½ step. The result? A Major chord! Again using the key of G Major for our examples, this means that the VII chord (F#dim) changes into an F Major! So now the scale line triads (chords built of using ONLY notes in the key, except for that bVII chord) looks like this:
I: G Major
II: A minor
III: B minor
IV: C Major
V: D Major
VI: A minor
VII: F Major
Now, by doing just that series (without adding other colors like the 6 and 9) we have inserted one chord, the flat VII that includes a F natural…..NOT an F#, as would be found in the Major Diatonic Scale in G Major. Just that one note in that one chord (F Major) makes that chord sound “different” and certainly interesting compared to the predictability of straight scale-line chords. Try this. Play the I – IV – V – I progression in G Major (G, C, D, G). Sounds really familiar, doesn’t it? And comfortable. Now play the I – IV – bVII – I progression (G, C, F, G). Hear how that F Major demands our attention? That’s because the root of that chord is NOT in the key of G Major. And that, my friends, is what chord “colors” are all about! It is not a radical color because the rest of the chord (A & C) are in the key of G Major but that F natural is certainly…..different. If you want to use the bVII chord in ANY key, just go to the naturally occurring 7thtone in any key, lower that note in ½ step (“flat” it!) and assume that it the “first name” or root of a Major chord. Simple as that!
Just how much coloring you want to add to your chords is totally subjective, and that’s where your creativity and how many chances you’re willing to take comes into play. Theoretically, you could add ANY note to ANY chord for color but you would pretty quickly discover that some sound just awful! There is a well-known story about the world premier if Igor Stravinsky’s famous Firebird Suite. Stravinsky was the first major composer to use lots of dissonance in his music (notes that clashed with the key) and the piece was so disturbing to the audience that there was a riot. You probably won’t cause a riot by inserting radical color notes into your chords, but be prepared for a negative reaction by both the listeners and yourself! This brings us to the most important part of understanding the use of “colors” in your chords: Dissonance and resolution.
Notes that are very close to each other, say, a half step apart, sound pretty awful to our ears. This is called dissonance. Press down on the 4th fret of your 2nd (B) string, then play your 1st and 2nd strings at the same time. Ooooo, that’s AWFUL! Dissonance occurs when two notes that are very close together are played at the same time. But here’s the cool part. If two letter named notes, say a F# and a G, are separated by some distance, perhaps close to an active, they don’t sound so bad at all. In fact, it is a color that has a lot of interest to our ears and can sound very pleasing. The most common example the Major 7th chord. A GMaj7 is made up of these notes:
G B D F#
Obviously, when thinking about the note names in order being “circular” – A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, etc. we can see that inside the GMaj7 we have an F# and a G…. a half-step apart, so they should be dissonant, right? But in all the commonly played inversions of GMaj7, there is a wide separation between the G and the F#. So – when “padded” with the other notes in the chord in between you hardly hear the dissonance at all! The point is – inserting a note into a chord that is inherently dissonant when played with the next note in sequence in the key can sound very interesting IF there is some distance between those two notes.
But what about a note that really sticks out? One that has the potential to sound just…..wrong. Songwriters have dealt with this by “resolving” that bad or wrong sounding note in the following chord. The best example I know of this is the Beatles classic “In My Life.” Half way through third measure of the song (in the key of G Major), John Lennon who wrote the song goes from a C Major to a C minor. That C minor chord uses an Eb in it, instead of the E natural found in the C Major, which is of course entirely constructed of notes in the key of G Major. For a brief moment, that Eb inside the C minor sounds dark, disturbing….but after only two beats on that chord, John “resolves” that dissonance by changing to the best sounding chord of all, the I chord, which is G Major. Our music brains go…..ahhhhhh……THAT’S better!!! The genius of this is that the resolution is accomplished by only moving inside the chord to the next by a half-step. A G Major chord is composed of these notes: G, B, D. So what John did over the course of three chords (C Major, C minor, G Major) was only move backwards in half steps: E – the 3rd of the C Major, to Eb – the 3rdof the C minor, to D, which is the 5th of the G Major! That is nothing short of simple genius in popular music and had rarely been heard before in that context.
I could cite many other examples of tension and resolution, dissonance resolved by a very small change from one chord to the next. As you explore adding notes to standard Major and minor chords, remember to not lean on your new colors too much; your ears will love the variety but in the end they want to go home again. But don’t let that stop you! Fool around. Add new notes to chords. I’ll bet you’ll find some very interesting sounds and your guitar playing – and your ear – will be better for it!
Peace & good music,
Gene
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