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Upper Structure
In jazz, the term upper structure or "upper structure triad" refers to a voicing approach developed by jazz pianists and arrangers defined by the sounding of a major or minor triad in the uppermost pitches of a more complex harmony.Ellenberger, Kurt. ''Materials and Concepts in Jazz Improvisation'', p.20. Examples Example 1: Below, a common voicing used by jazz pianists is given for the chord C79 (C major chord with a minor 7th, and extended with an augmented 9th). In the lower stave the notes E and B are given. These form a tritone which defines the dominant sound, and are the major 3rd and minor 7th of the C79 chord. In the upper stave the notes E, G, and B are given together: these form an E major triad. This E major triad is what would be called the upper structure. Considered in relation to the root C, the notes of this E major triad function, respectively, as the sharpened ninth (the root of the E major chord), fifth, and seventh in relation to that root. (Note: th ...
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Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, hymns, marches, vaudeville song, and dance music. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, ...
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Voicing (music)
In music theory, voicing refers to two closely related concepts: # How a musician or group distributes, or spaces, notes and chords on one or more instruments # The simultaneity (music), simultaneous vertical placement of notes in relation to each other; this relates to the concepts of spacing and Voicing (music)#Doubling, doubling It includes the instrumentation (music), instrumentation and vertical spacing and ordering of the musical notes in a chord (music), chord: which notes are on the top or in the middle, which ones are doubled, which octave each is in, and which instruments or voices perform each note. Vertical placement The following three chords are all C major, C-major triads in root (chord), root position with different voicings. The first is in close position (the most compact voicing), while the second and third are in Close and open harmony, open position (that is, with wider spacing). Notice also that the G is doubled at the octave in the third chord; that is, ...
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Arrangement
In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestration in that the latter process is limited to the assignment of notes to instruments for performance by an orchestra, concert band, or other musical ensemble. Arranging "involves adding compositional techniques, such as new thematic material for introductions, transitions, or modulations, and endings. Arranging is the art of giving an existing melody musical variety".(Corozine 2002, p. 3) In jazz, a memorized (unwritten) arrangement of a new or pre-existing composition is known as a ''head arrangement''. Classical music Arrangement and transcriptions of classical and serious music go back to the early history of classical music. Eighteenth century J. S. Bach frequently made arrangements of his own and other composers' p ...
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Triad (music)
In music, a triad is a set of three notes (or "pitch classes") that can be stacked vertically in thirds.Ronald Pen, ''Introduction to Music'' (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992): 81. . "A triad is a set of notes consisting of three notes built on successive intervals of a third. A triad can be constructed upon any note by adding alternating notes drawn from the scale.... In each case the note that forms the foundation pitch is called the ''root'', the middle tone of the triad is designated the ''third'' (because it is separated by the interval of a third from the root), and the top tone is referred to as the ''fifth'' (because it is a fifth away from the root)." Triads are the most common chord (music), chords in Western music. When stacked in thirds, notes produce triads. The triad's members, from lowest-pitched tone to highest, are called: * the root **Note: Inversion (music)#Inverted chords, Inversion does not change the root. (The third or fifth can be the lowest note.) * the third ...
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Dominant Chord
In music, the dominant is the fifth scale degree () of the diatonic scale. It is called the ''dominant'' because it is second in importance to the first scale degree, the tonic. In the movable do solfège system, the dominant note is sung as "So(l)". The triad built on the dominant note is called the dominant chord. This chord is said to have dominant function, which means that it creates an instability that requires the tonic for resolution. Dominant triads, seventh chords, and ninth chords typically have dominant function. Leading-tone triads and leading-tone seventh chords may also have dominant function. Dominant chords In music theory, the dominant triad is a major chord, symbolized by the Roman numeral "V" in the major scale. In the natural minor scale, the triad is a minor chord, denoted by "v". However, in a minor key, the seventh scale degree is often raised by a half step ( to ), creating a major chord. These chords may also appear as seventh chord ...
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Enharmonic
In music, two written notes have enharmonic equivalence if they produce the same pitch but are notated differently. Similarly, written intervals, chords, or key signatures are considered enharmonic if they represent identical pitches that are notated differently. The term derives from Latin , in turn from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek (), from ('in') and ('harmony'). Definition The predominant tuning system in Western music is twelve-tone equal temperament (12 ), where each octave is divided into twelve equivalent half steps or semitones. The notes F and G are a whole step apart, so the note one semitone above F (F) and the note one semitone below G (G) indicate the same pitch. These written notes are ''enharmonic'', or ''enharmonically equivalent''. The choice of notation for a pitch can depend on its role in harmony; this notation keeps modern music compatible with earlier tuning systems, such as meantone temperaments. The choice can also depend on the note's re ...
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Octatonic Scale
An octatonic scale is any eight-note musical scale. However, the term most often refers to the ancohemitonic symmetric scale composed of alternating whole and half steps, as shown at right. In classical theory (in contrast to jazz theory), this symmetrical scale is commonly called the ''octatonic scale'' (or the ''octatonic collection''), although there are a total of 43 enharmonically inequivalent, transpositionally inequivalent eight-note sets. The earliest systematic treatment of the octatonic scale was in Edmond de Polignac's unpublished treatise "Étude sur les successions alternantes de tons et demi-tons (Et sur la gamme dite majeure-mineure)" (''Study of the Succession of Alternating Whole Tones and Semitones (and of the so-called Major-Minor Scale)'') from c. 1879, which preceded Vito Frazzi's ''Scale alternate per pianoforte'' of 1930 by 50 years. Nomenclature In Saint Petersburg at the turn of the 20th century, this scale had become so familiar in the circle of ...
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Extended Harmony
In music, extended chords are certain chords (built from thirds) or triads with notes ''extended'', or added, beyond the seventh. Ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords are extended chords. The thirteenth is the farthest extension diatonically possible as, by that point, all seven tonal degrees are represented within the chord (the next extension, the fifteenth, is the same as the root of the chord). In practice however, extended chords do not typically use all the chord members; when it is not altered, the fifth is often omitted, as are notes between the seventh and the highest note (i.e., the ninth is often omitted in an eleventh chord; the ninth and eleventh are usually omitted in a thirteenth chord), unless they are altered to give a special texture. Chords extended beyond the seventh are rarely seen in the Baroque era, and are used more frequently in the Classical era. The Romantic era saw greatly increased use of extended harmony. Extended harmony prior to the 20th ...
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Jazz Chord
Jazz chords are chords, chord voicings and chord symbols that jazz musicians commonly use in composition, improvisation, and harmony. In jazz chords and theory, most triads that appear in lead sheets or fake books can have sevenths added to them, using the performer's discretion and ear. For example, if a tune is in the key of C, if there is a G chord, the chord-playing performer usually voices this chord as G7. While the notes of a G7 chord are G–B–D–F, jazz often omits the fifth of the chord—and even the root if playing in a group. However, not all jazz pianists leave out the root when they play voicings: Bud Powell, one of the best-known of the bebop pianists, and Horace Silver, whose quintet included many of jazz's biggest names from the 1950s to the 1970s, included the root note in their voicings. Improvising chord-playing musicians who omit the root and fifth are given the option to play other notes. For example, if a seventh chord, such as G7, appears in a lea ...
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Jazz Scale
A jazz scale is any musical scale used in jazz. Many "jazz scales" are common scales drawn from European classical music, Western European classical music, including the diatonic scale, diatonic, whole-tone scale, whole-tone, octatonic scale, octatonic (or diminished), and the Mode (music), modes of the ascending Minor_scale#Melodic_minor_scale, melodic minor. All of these scales were commonly used by late nineteenth and early twentieth-century composers such as Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Claude Debussy, Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Ravel and Igor Stravinsky, Stravinsky, often in ways that directly anticipate jazz practice. Some jazz scales, such as the eight-note bebop scales, add additional Chromatic passing tone, chromatic passing tones to the familiar seven-note diatonic scales. Theory One important feature of jazz is what theorists call "the principles of Chord-scale system, chord-scale compatibility": the idea that a sequence of chords will generate a sequence ...
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Polychord
In music and music theory, a polychord consists of two or more chords, one on top of the other. In shorthand they are written with the top chord above a line and the bottom chord below,Policastro, Michael A. (1999). ''Understanding How to Build Guitar Chords and Arpeggios'', p. 168. . for example F upon C: . The use of polychords may suggest bitonality or polytonality. Harmonic parallelism may suggest bichords. Examples may be found in Igor Stravinsky's '' Petrushka'', p. 15, and '' Rite of Spring'', "Dance of the Adolescents" (1921) (see Petrushka chord). In the polychords in the image above, the first might suggest a thirteenth chord, the second may suggest a D minor ninth chord with upper extensions, but the octave separation of the 3rd makes the suggestion of two independent triads a minor ninth apart even more likely, and the fourth is a split-third chord. Extended chord In music, extended chords are certain Chord (music), chords (built from third (chord) ...
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Chordioid
A chordioid, also called ''chord fragment'' or ''fragmentary voicing''Rawlins, Robert, et al. (2005) ''Jazzology: The Encyclopedia of Jazz Theory for All Musicians'', p. 86. Winona: Hal Leonard. . or ''partial voicing'', is a group of musical notes which does not qualify as a chord under a given chord theory, but still useful to name and reify for other reasons. Almost all types of chordioid are at least ancohemitonic, allowing the possibility that the resultant scale be at least ancohemitonic itself. The main use of chordioids is to form "legitimate" chords enharmonically in 12TET by adding one or more notes to this base.Slonimsky, Nicholas. (1947) ''Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns'', p. v. New York: Charles Scribner Sons. . It is typical of chordioids that many different resultant chords can be created from the same base depending on the note or combination of notes added. The resultant chords on a single chordioid are somewhat related, because they can be progres ...
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