Theory- Chord Substitutions

Gene Rawe

I trying to learn/understand some theory and had a couple questions:
Hungaria-Key G
1) are 7th chords often played in place of a minor chord? Ex: Part A: E7 & A7 (Key of G- E&A should be Min?)
2) 1625 at the end of line 2; There is Bb Dim in as the 6 (which would be Em in the key signature?)

Thanks in advance!

P.S: any good videos/explanation sources for the topic of substitutions?

Lango-Django

I played a New Years gig and the chart for "Angel Eyes" called for an F#7 alt chord

I get that that means an altered F#7 chord, but altered HOW?

I just played a 3-note F#7 chord and didn't worry about the alt part, but I'm still wondering--- flat 5? Flat 9? Sharp 9? Flat 13? All of the above?

Please enlighten me, ye masters of music theory...

(Yes, I'm lookin' at YOU Mr. Jazzaferri...)

wim

Lango-Django wrote: »

...an F#7 alt chord

I get that that means an altered F#7 chord, but altered HOW?

I just played a 3-note F#7 chord and didn't worry about the alt part, but I'm still wondering--- flat 5? Flat 9? Sharp 9? Flat 13? All of the above?

this was also a bit of a mystery to me until fairly recently. olivier kikteff explained it to us in one of the classes at DIJ and showed us some licks on "altered" sounds and it cleared things up a bit. i will try to summarise ..

- because this is a type of dominant chord in jazz, you have major third M3 and flat seventh b7. you shouldn't "alter" those.
- for the others (generally the higher pitched notes in the chord), you can take your pick of b5 or #5, b9 or #9. any combination will work. it's nice to pick the extensions which will give you some voice leading to the following chord.

if that sounds vague, it refers to picking your extensions off the altered scale.

in altered scale everything is flattened, e.g.

C major scale: C D E F G A B
C altered scale: C Db Eb Fb Gb Ab Bb

so F# alt: F# G A Bb C D E

depending on who you talk to, guys might call that the superlocrian scale (its very close to locrian mode), the diminished-wholetone scale (starts out like a diminshed scale then ends like a wholetone scale), the 7th mode of melodic minor.. blah blah, well the name doesn't matter, play these notes over a dominant 7th chord and you will recognise the "sound" because it is very popular with the modern french players licks.

for Calt the notes are like a B major scale with a C used in place of the root B, but it's kind of a "cheat" to think of it like that. instead the important things to see are that you have
- a flat 5th, flat 9th, flat 13th
- the b13 is enharmonically equivalent to #5
- even though you are playing a dominant chord here (i.e. maj 3rd), the scale has a minor 3rd which means the #9 (==m3) is a permissable extension too. honestly I don't quite understand why that works but the note is in the scale and it sounds good *shrugs* (warning, it doesn't sound good to play a minor triad in this context though!! so avoid putting the m3 low in the voicing)

wim

here is the most cliche F#7 alt lick I can show you, play it with a triplet feel and you'll probably recognise it immediately from any of the young paris cats ..

--6-10---6----------------------
-------8---10-8-7---------------
------------------9-7-----------
----------------------8-7-------
--------------------------10-9--
--------------------------------

also works over C7 (because of tritone sub). over a C7 it will sound more "inside" though.

consider G-6 as substitution of C9 and you can also guess it will work over G-. here it's giving a plain old harmonic minor kind of sound (recall altered scale is the 7th mode of harmonic minor, i.e. you could think of the F#7 as 7th scale degree if you are building your chords with a G harmonic minor scale).

Bones

Hey Wim, can you think of a recording where this lick is played so I can listen to it in the context of a song?

Thanks

kungfumonk007

Those 7 chords you mentioned are all secondary dominants - a little too technical way of thinking I think for jazz but that is what they are. They are all Major 3rd, Flat 7 chords. Any chord can be temporarily "tonicized" by playing a 7 chord a 5th away from it.

Think about the key of G major, 1.Gmaj-2.Amin-3.Bmin-4.Cmaj-5.D7-6.Emin-7.F#dim-1.Gmaj. The 5th chord D7 creates a tension that desperately wants to resolve to Gmaj. If you did the same thing for the key of A, E7 would be the 5th chord that desperately wants to resolve to A. Then if you did the same thing for the key of D the A7 would be the 5th chord that wants to resolve to D, and then D7 is the 5th chord of G - so you end up with E7-A7-D7-G.

There is other ways of thinking about it but that is one way. Any chord can be "tonicized" by playing a dominant 7 chord a 5th away. I will cover this type of stuff on my youtube lessons eventually.



You can play endless cycles of dominant chords that way. Try it - C7, F7, Bb7, Eb7, Ab7, Db7, Gb7(F#7), B7, E7, A7, D7, G7, C7.

You can also throw in a secondary dominant in your improvising. Try it on minor swing. Right before the Am switches to Dm, play an A7b9 arpeggio instead, and resolve it so the C# goes to D, or the G drops to F.

wim

Oh yes I also use this term secondary dominant for those chords mentioned in Hungaria. The E7 is not really a "six" chord (vi), in harmony class I have heard it called a "5 of 2" and written V/ii or V(ii) in the roman numeral notation. Likewise the A7 is a "5 of 5" V7/V

@Bones can't think of any recording off the top of my head, but for sure I will hear it sometime when listening to my records .. will try to remember to come back here and post it

Hemert

Here's an easy way of distinguishing between all the dominant "colors":

normal or "white" dominant: 9 & 13
altered: b9 & b13
octatonic: b9 & 13
wholetone: 9 & b13

note that the #11 is part of the scales of all colors
note that the #9 (or b10) is part of both the altered and octatonic scale

Easy peasy!

Gene Rawe

Excellent explanation 007. I'll check out your YouTube videos.

Jazzaferri

Check out the Wiki article on chord substitution. It's pretty good, though I prefer Levine's ideas on the subject but that would be a very long post indeed.

There is a big difference between chord substitution an reharmonization. Subs don't change the fundamental harmony. Tritone subs and diminished subs are used to get chromatic root movement back yo the tonic. While they change a note or two (which gives them their interest) they have the same harmonic function.

Jazzaferri

I forgot to add the alt chord is derived from the 7th mode of the melodic minor scale

The formal listing for C7 alt chord is C7 b9 #9 #11 b13. Easy to see why the short form "alt" is used.