The following is a preview of The Music Theory Manual - Beyond Diatonic Harmony Available Now!
Topics covered:
Modal Interchange
Secondary Doninants
Secondary II-Vs
Diminished 7th Harmony
Negative Harmony
Introduction:
This book is intended as a thorough, incremental method that explains and demonstrates advanced harmony beyond that of Major Scale (diatonic) harmony.
During my own study of music I found the well established rules of Major Scale harmony to be immensely useful in providing a context for the sounds heard in the music that I wanted to learn, in addition to being a strong foundation for improvement. If I could understand the theory behind a given sound then I could replicate that sound at will and use it in my own playing.
What I found when trying to use this method to study sounds found outside of Major Scale harmony was that the explanations found in seminal books often didn’t yield the same sounds that they were attempting to explain.
The Music Theory Manual attempts to do just that by way of concise, concrete explanations and rules that explain and contextualise sounds found outside of Major Scale harmony.
In order for you to fully utilise and understand the concepts covered in this book you must first have a very strong understanding of Diatonic Major Scale harmony. To clarify this, I mean that you must understand what chords are yielded from the tertian harmonisation of the Major Scale, what extensions are applicable to, and what scales (modes) are twinned with those chords. This is all covered in my book Music Theory for Guitar.
The Harmonic Proving Ground - Rules for Effective Analysis:
When devising my system for explaining Advanced Harmony I decided that I needed air-tight rules that worked 100% of the time. They needed to be like a science. If a rule is consistent 80% of the time then it is a coincidence and not a rule. I recognised that I needed established constants in order to determine the effectiveness of a given explanation/rule. What I have come up with is three crucial constants that must be present when analysing sounds:
1) Ballad Tempo:
If the speed of the music that we are analysing is too fast then it is difficult to establish with any certainty the true effect of a given note against a given chord. I believe this to be the source of a great deal of confusion regarding which scales are appropriate to be used over a given chord.
Imagine you are looking at a set of images passing you by slowly on a conveyer belt. You would have time to look at each image and decide whether or not it was a pleasing or a distressing image. The faster that conveyer belt went the more difficult it would be to establish your thoughts on each individual image until the belt stopped and you were left looking at the last image.
I assert that in order for a rule to stand up to scrutiny it must work at Ballad Tempo.
2) Chords Come From Scales:
This may seem obvious but it is frequently treated as though it is not. If you are looking to find the scale to play over any given chord you need look no further than the scale from which the chord was derived. This concept is firmly established in Major Scale harmony.
You wouldn’t play a Phrygian scale over the D-7 in the key of C for example. You need to be able to correctly identify the origins of every chord in a progression in order to establish its parent scale. I will explore this concept thoroughly throughout the book but it sets up constant number 3 very nicely.....
3) Intervallic Consistency:
If we are saying that an interval is eligible for use over a given chord then that interval must function in the same way as it does in all other harmonic situations.
For example, every time a natural 9th is an available note choice, you can hang on it until the cows come home and it sounds great. This is true of natural 9ths from the Lydian scale, the Major scale, the Mixolydian scale, the Dorian scale, the Aeolian scale, the Lydian Dominant scale, the Harmonic Minor scale, the Melodic Minor scale etc etc.
I see a lot of hoopla about the Locrian Natural 9 scale and how this is the ‘scale of choice’ over a -7b5 chord. This is only true when the -7b5 chord in question has been derived from the 6th degree of the Melodic Minor scale or when a chord with a naturally occurring 9th has been altered to become a m7b5, such as a II chord. In these harmonic situations you can hang on the natural 9th to the same effect as is heard in all of the scales mentioned above.
Test this out for yourselves over the G#-7b5 in Chick Corea’s Windows. This tune is in the key of B and my analysis of the first 6 chords are as follows:
B-7 = I-7
G#-7b5 = VI-7b5 (from B Melodic Minor)
C#7 = V7 of...
F#-7 = V-7
A-7 = bVII-7
E Maj7 = IV
In this instance hanging on an A# over the G#-7b5 chord sounds great because that A# is present in the scale that the G#-7b5 has been derived from.
Let’s look at a different -7b5 chord from a different harmonic situation: D-7b5 from My Funny Valentine in Cm. This song is predominantly an Aeolian chord progression (with the exception of the C-6 in bar 1). It can’t be a C Melodic Minor or C Dorian progression or else the II would be a D-7.
All chords in this song (except the first) are in the key of C Aeolian/Eb Major or are secondary dominants of the key. The D-7b5 is entirely consistent with this and as such yields a b9 (Eb). Try hanging on the natural 9 over the D-7b5 and see what it sounds like. I think we can all agree that it sounds awful and illustrates intervallic inconsistency in that it’s not acting as a natural 9 should.
This has to illustrate that Locrian Natural 9 doesn’t sound good over -7b5 chords. It sounds good over some -7b5 chords: the ones that are acting as VI-7b5 in the Melodic Minor scale. You may get away with this natural 9 at higher speeds where our ears are less able to accurately register the relationship of the note against the chord, but this is nothing more than a garden variety passing tone.
Using these three constants we have a solid Harmonic Proving Ground for analysis of my rules.