A Player's Guide to Chords and Harmony (17 page)

Figure 5-4. The chords in Figure 5-2 have names, which are shown here. As usual, all of the chords are shown with a C root, purely for convenience. You should try transposing these chords to the other 11 roots in the scale to get a feel for how they appear on the keyboard.

Without wishing to restrict your own usage of these chords or the meaning you find in them, which may be different from anything other musicians have ever envisioned, we can make a couple of basic observations. Most listeners feel that the major 7th chord has a pleasant, settled, happy sound. The minor 7th, in contrast, is more sad and thoughtful. The dominant 7th is bold and purposeful. The major-augmented and minor-major 7ths are edgy and unsettled; because of their instability, they're used most often as transitional chords. The half-diminished 7th is also a transitional chord, but its sound is warmer. The diminished 7th chord is ambiguous and therefore very unstable. It always serves as a lead-in to some other, more stable chord.

Figure 5-5. The diatonic 7th chords in the major scale.

CHORD SYMBOL ABBREVIATIONS

Having to write out the full name of a chord type in sheet music each time the chord is employed would make for a messy, hard-to-read page. Musicians have come up with concise abbreviations for many commonly used chord types - not just 7th chords, but other types, as explained in later chapters. While there is not complete agreement among musicians about which abbreviations should be used to indicate which chords, only a few systems (which are similar to one another except for details) are in common use. These symbols are very commonly employed in lead sheets. In fact, we've already seen a few of them in Chapter Three.

The general rules that are employed for generating basic chord symbols are as follows:

1. The root of the chord is indicated by its letter name (almost always shown as a capital letter). Any chord whose root is C will have an abbreviation that begins with the letter C. If necessary, an accidental will be part of the root name. A chord whose root is F#, for instance, will have an abbreviation that begins with the letter F followed by the sharp sign.

2. Numbers in the abbreviation always indicate the notes in extended voicings. All of the basic 7th chords, for instance, use the number 7. Thus if there is no number, a simple triad is indicated.

3. Since the 3rd of the chord is so important for giving it a characteristic color and function, the 3rd is indicated immediately following the root - but only if such an indication is needed in order to make the abbreviation clear. A major 3rd is indicated either with the letters "maj" or with a capital "M.' A minor 3rd is indicated either with the letters "min" or a lowercase letter "m," or with a minus sign (-). In this book, I'll use "maj" for major and "m" for minor. (I recommend not using a capital "M" for major chords, because many people's handwriting doesn't make a clear enough distinction between "m" and "M" In computer-printed charts, "M" is acceptable, but it's bound to be confusing to use abbreviations in printed music that you wouldn't use in handwritten music.)

4. In general, the most commonly used chords have the simplest abbreviations. This makes the chord symbols easier to read. As a result, it's not often necessary to spell out the type of 3rd, 5th, and 7th (or other notes) used in a chord, except with chords that are used less often.

These principles should help you understand why the specific symbols explained below have the form that they do.

1. A letter name not followed by any other sign indicates a major triad - for instance, the chord symbol "D" by itself indicates a D major triad, with no 7th or other notes (see Figure 5-6). All other chord symbols have suffixes.

Figure 5-6. Chord symbols with no suffixes denote major triads. (A flat or sharp in the letter name is not considered a suffix.) Most of the chords in Figures 5-6 through 5-10 are shown in closed position purely for convenience - chord symbols do not show whether a chord is to be voiced in closed or open position.

2. A letter name followed by "m" or "min" indicates a minor triad, again with no 7th. The same holds true for letter names followed simply by "aug" or "dim" - they refer to augmented and diminished triads, respectively (see Figure 5-7). In jazz charts, the diminished triad is indicated even more commonly with a small, raised circle next to the root name, for instance "F°". (This symbol is sometimes used to indicate a diminished 7th chord rather than a simple diminished triad. Since diminished triads are seldom used without other notes, this abbreviated usage makes sense.)

Figure 5-7. Minor triads are indicated with the suffix "m" (or "min"), augmented triads with the suffix "aug, " and diminished triads with the suffix "dim."

3. A letter name followed by a "7" with no other indication indicates a dominant 7th voicing. While there are other 7th chords, the dominant 7th is used somewhat more often than other types, or at any rate is felt to be more basic, so it gets the nod for the simplest abbreviation (see Figure 5-8).

Figure 5-8. When the suffix of the chord symbol is "7" with no other indication, a dominant 7th chord is meant.

4. The major 7th, minor 7th, and diminished 7th chords are indicated with the suffix "maj7" (or "M7"), "m7" (or "min7"), and "dim7" (or "07"). With both the maj7 and m7 chords, the "maj" or "m" conveniently tells us how to play both the 3rd and the 7th of the chord (see Figure 5-9). Some arrangers use a triangle after the root letter to indicate a major 7th chord.

Figure 5-9. The suffix "maj7 (or "M7") indicates a major 7th chord, "m7" (or "min7") indicates a minor 7th chord, and "dim7" (or "07") indicates a diminished 7th chord.

5. This leaves us with the half-diminished, augmented-major, and minormajor 7th chords. Because these are somewhat less common, they have to make do with the messiest abbreviations (see Figure 5-10). The half-diminished 7th, in fact, has two abbreviations, which are used interchangeably. Some arrangers indicate it with a superscript o, like the diminished 7th, but with a slash through the o, like this: 07 It's also known as a "minor seven-flat-five" chord, abbreviated "m765" (or "min765"), because it contains the same 3rd and 7th as the minor 7th chord, together with a lowered (flatted) 5th.

The augmented-major 7th is indicated in a similar way. The 3rd and 7th are the same as those in the maj7 chord, but the 5th is raised, so it's indicated with the suffix "maj7#5" (or "M7#5"). The 7th chord with a minor 3rd and major 7th has the clumsiest abbreviation we've seen so far. The suffix used is "m-maj7" (or "min- maj7"), indicating the triad first and then the 7th.

Figure 5-10. The suffixes "maj7#5", "m-maj7", and "m765" are used for the chord types shown.

INVERTING 7TH CHORDS

Because a 7th chord has four notes, it can be played in four different inversions: in root position or in first, second, or third inversion. The first and second inversions of triads have already been discussed in Chapter Three. When a 7th chord is played in third inversion, the 7th is the lowest note. The basic possibilities are shown in Figure 5-11.

The chord symbol abbreviations shown in Figures 5-6 through 5-10 don't include any information about which inversion to use. In many situations, the choice of inversion is left up to the player - and in fact, if several players are reading from the same chord chart, each may use a different inversion. This is a good thing: It helps listeners hear the chording instruments as distinct entities. What ultimately determines the inversion listeners will hear, in any case, is the note played by the bass player. As a result, chord symbols sometimes include an indication of which note should be played in the bass. This is normally done by adding a slash mark (/) after the chord symbol, and following the slash mark with the name of the bass note. For instance, the chord symbol Cmaj7/B would be a C major 7th chord with the B in the bass - a chord in third inversion.

Some arrangers prefer to use chord symbols with slash marks to indicate that two complete chords are to be played at the same time (a technique known as bitonalism, which will be discussed briefly in Chapter Six). If the arranger is using this approach, single bass notes will be indicated by adding the word "bass" - for example, "Cmaj7/B bass" In general, though, it's fairly safe to assume that a note mentioned after a slash mark is a bass note, not an indication that you're to play a bitonal chord voicing.