Harmony and chord theory for steel players

Mike Neer · From: NJ

I'm making this post in an effort to start a discussion and to help some gain a better understanding of chords and harmony and how things don't always have to be black and white, especially for non-pedal players. If the information contained in the first few paragraphs is elementary to you, skip ahead to the next post where you might find something of value. Please let's not get into any skirmishes. Very Happy

The process of building chords is quite a simple one: Each type of chord has a formula, or a recipe, if you will. Once you become familiar with these formulas (eg, Maj = 1 3 5, minor = 1 b3 5), going as far as you possibly can (I mean learning EVERY formula), and realizing that the root of your chord is the tonic of the scale you're going to use (if you want to find a Bb9 chord, you build on the Bb scale; same with Amin9, you work with the A Major scale, using the chord's formula).

After you've been building chords, you may wonder where does it all fit? How do I know which chord works where? This all has to do with Harmony, specifically diatonic harmony. You've heard someone say "OK, go to the IV chord." Well, briefly, this means that in the key you're playing in, the chord built off of the 4th degree of the scale. The diatonic IV chord in major scale harmony is a Major chord--extended, it is a Major 7 chord. If the tune you're playing calls for a IV chord that is a dominant (IV7), then you have opened up a whole new can of worms, which I hope to get into a little further down the line. This is where Modes are employed--they are used to help define a chord's harmonic function and are often used as a reference for improvisation...more on that later.

Taking a look at chords, they can often be thought of consisting of 2 and sometimes more triads. I'm sure you know this already, but chords built from intervals of major or minor 3rds are called "tertian chords." When you look at the scale starting from its root, skipping the very next scale tone and using the following scale tone is the interval of a third. We build tertian chords by continuing this pattern. Ok, now that that's out of the way....

For the most basic example, have a look at CMaj7: C E G B
In this example you see 2 triads, CMaj and Emin.

Suppose we extend the harmony to include the 9th degree: C E G B D
Now we have 3 triads: CMaj, Emin and GMaj

Let's use the example of C7, which is diatonic to the F Maj scale. All dominant 7th chords are diatonic to the scale whose root is a 5th below, or 4th above. (The formula, when building from the C Maj scale, is 1 3 5 b7)
C7: C E G Bb
In this chord we have 2 triads: CMaj and Edim (every dominant 7th chord contains a diminished triad--REMEMBER THIS, it will be very important down the line).

What if we extend this to C9: C E G Bb D
Now we have 3 triads: CMaj, Edim and Gmin

If we extend it further to C13, we now have quite a bevvy of triads to play around with:
C13: C E G Bb D F A
CMaj, Edim, Gmin, BbMaj, Bb6, FMaj, Amin, Dmin
and even a few extended chords: C7, Gmin7, Amin7, Dmin7, BbMaj7

Minor chords are fun, too. Minor chords are defined by the interval of a minor 3rd between the root and the 3rd degree. Cm= C Eb G

(Sidebar: It can get very interesting with minor chords. As an example, let's say we want to build a Cmin11 chord; the formula for that chord is 1 b3 5 b7 9 11, so the notes are C Eb G Bb D F
The Cmin chord (or vi chord) is a direct relative of the EbMaj chord--Cmin is the relative minor of Eb. If you look at all the notes of the C11 chord, they are all diatonic to Eb Major; however, if you look at Major scale harmonized diatonically, you'll see that there are 3 minor chords. So, the Cmin chord is diatonic to 3 different keys--Eb (vi chord), Bb (ii chord) and Ab (iii chord). Depending on the function of the chord, the extensions used will be different--this is what modes are all about. Without getting into it too much, let's just say that in the key of Ab, your Cmin9 chord is going to sound very out of place (not for Jazz, though) because the 9 (or D) is not diatonic to Ab. I will stop here so not to confuse things further.

Cm7: C Eb G Bb
This chord contains: Cmin and EbMaj triads

Cmin9: C Eb G Bb D
Cmin, Gmin, EbMaj triads

Cmin11: C Eb G Bb D F
Cmin, Cmin, EbMaj, Gmin, BbMaj

I haven't yet introduced sus chords, which can be thought of as altered chords in a sense (but not in a true sense the way we refer to altered chords) because you are suspending the 3rd momentarily with either the 2nd or 4th degree (eg. C7sus4: C F G Bb; C7sus2: C D G Bb). You can see in both cases the 3rd (E) has been replaced by either the F or D. These chords most often resolve by bringing the 3rd back in.

What is the purpose of knowing all this and how do I use it? Well, for starters, we are somewhat limited on the non-pedal steel because we're not able to grab all the big chords that would clearly and easily fill in the blanks. Personally, I think this is where the instrument shines and becomes exciting because we get to practice the most important element of music: motion. Music does not stand still, it moves. Bass movement propels the harmony; movement in the upper voices provides coloration. We use fragments of chords to move around, even chromatically to help us get from one place to another.

In improvising, it is very useful to incorporate these related chords to, again, emphasize motion in the melody. I find scale-based improvisation to be a little less exciting than one that utilizes arpeggios and wider intervallic leaps (unless, of course, one is usung a lot of chromatic passing tones, which can really spice up linear playing).

More to come, specifically on the mysterious subject of altered dominant chords. I can't very well stop here when there's so much more to cover, but I need a nap. Very Happy

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Orville Johnson · From: Seattle, Washington, USA

Hey, Mike, very well and clearly stated. Keep it coming.

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Disclaimer: Be careful with this stuff--it can hurt you.

Dominant 7th chords are my favorite topic with regard to harmony, because there are so many layers to them and so many interesting approaches to dealing with them. Let's start with a few simple facts:

There is only one dominant 7 chord diatonic to each major scale. If you see a G7 chord, it is only diatonic to the key of C (as I said previously, the dom7 chord is diatonic to the key center a 5th below it or a 4th above it). Well, you might ask, what if your chords are like a Blues progression, C7 F7 and G7? The answer to this is pretty simple, let's do
the math:

C7 = Key of F
F7 = Key of Bb
G7 = Key of C
Actually, your progression would probably be more like this:
/C C7/ F7 /C / C7/F7/ F7/ C / C7/ G7 / C /G7 /

What? All those keys? Well, yes, you are temporarily playing in all of those keys. See
the dom7 serves as a signal that the chord is going to change, usually resolve back to its home; however, many times it moves to another dom7, which means we're cycling. In the key of F, the C7 or V chord introduces the Mixolydian mode, which is the F scale beginning on the 5th degree, or C. C D E F G A Bb C. See the Bb? Bb is not diatonic to the key of C, so although we say we are playing C Blues, the dominant 7 chords indicate that we will be temporarily visiting other key centers. We are not going to stay there for long, just long enough to set up the next chord. We do the same thing for F7--it is the V of Bb, so we're playing the F Mixolydian scale there. When we get to G7, we play G Mixolydian, which is the 5th mode of the C Major scale. Make sense?

Another important thing to talk about is Secondary Dominant chords. Secondary dominants are chords which are built on the other scale degrees--now, not only the Tonic chord has a dominant 7 companion. Every diatonic chord had a secondary dominant chord a 5th above it (NOTE: other than the actual V chord of your key, all of the other dominant chords are non-diatonic). These are usually just temporary devices, but they can really add a lot of interesting movement and sound to your playing.

Here are some examples of secondary dominant chords:

C --> G7 --> C
Dm --> A7 --> Dm
Em --> B7 --> Em
F --> C7 --> F
G7 --> D7 --> G7
Am --> E7 --> Am
Bdim --> F#7 --> Bdim
C --> G7 --> C

Play these--you will definitely recognize the sound!

Another related device is called the secondary diminished, which a diminished chord 1/2 step below your diatonic chord:

C --> Bdim --> C
Dm --> C#dim --> Dm
Em --> D#dim --> Em
F --> Edim --> F
G7 --> F#dim --> G7
Am --> G#dim --> Am
Bdim --> A#dim --> Bdim
C --> Bdim --> C

Another tip--diminished chords and dominant 7th chords are very closely related. The intervals in a diminished chord are min 3rds; remember, every dominant 7 chord contains a diminished triad. The chord tones 3, 5 and b7 make a diminished triad.

I'm feeling sleepy again. More to come....
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John Dahms · From: Perkasie, Pennsylvania, USA

Mike,
Your peeling layers off the onion in a clear logical way. Good job. This will keep me busy for a while.
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Fruit flies like a banana.

Danny James · From: Summerfield Florida USA

Mike,

I too am very grateful for your work in pointing all of this out. It should stimulate a lot of thinking here I would think, and be very helpful to many of us in understanding music theory.

Keep up the good work Exclamation

Sonny Jenkins · From: Texas Masonic Retirement Center,,,Arlington Tx

Mike,,,This is something that has been needed here for a looonnnggg time,,,,keep it coming. This has the potential of tying up a lot of loose ends for this country boy!!!!

Steve Ahola · From: Concord, California

Damn, Mike- you should be teaching this stuff at SGU, the Steel Guitar University! Whoa!

You have a great knack for cutting up music theory into small chunks that we can digest before moving on to the next piece.

I have found the StudyBass web site great for printing out fretboard charts with whatever notes you specify, and with whatever chord or scale you want it to display in notes or intervals. Indispensable!

http://www.studybass.com/tools/chord-scale-note-printer/

Steve Ahola
www.blueguitar.org

Mike Neer · From: NJ

As you can see, I don't have much else to do this evening....

Just a few short words about a very important, related topic: intervals. Of course, you know that intervals are the distance between 2 notes. This is how you really learn to get inside of your tuning. Here's how:

If you take a look at C6 tuning with a 1st string E, the interval between string 1 and 2 is a major 3rd. The interval between strings 2 and 3 is a minor 3rd. Okay, let's take a look at some chords:

Major 7th chords, in root position (we are not going to look at inversions here, for the sake of simplicity), contain the following intervals, in order: maj 3 (root to 3rd), min 3 (3rd to 5th), maj 3 (5th to 7th). It is also contains a perfect 5th (root to 5th), a maj 7th (root to 7th), and another perfect 5th (3rd to 7th). We're going to focus only on the maj 3 and min 3 for now.

Take a look at strings 1 and 2 (E and C). That is a major 3rd interval. For CMaj7, we can play open or at the 12th fret. Easy enough. Now go to fret 7, same strings, notes G and B. That is the other major 3rd interval in our chord (5th to 7th).

What about strings 2 and 3? Well, that's a min 3rd, so we can go to the 7th fret where we will find our 3rd to 5th (E to G). Great, we've completed the root position Maj7 chord. But we still have a ton of other chords in 11 other keys to figure out. This is the kind of work you have to do on your own. You pick a chord, you analyse its intervalic structure, you find it on your guitar in fragments. If we can find clusters of 3 and 4 notes which belong to a chord, then we use them and we try to figure out what else the chord could be used for. As an example, let's take strings 1, 2 and 3 at the 12th fret:
A C E. Very simple, it spells Amin. What else could it spell? For one, D9...how about C6?...maybe FMaj7, or Ab7#5b9 (huh, really?), or BbMaj9#11 (that's stretching it), or Eb13b5b9 (yup)....yes, it could work for all of the above. I'm just trying to point out the possibilities here.

Ok, back to intervals...You should become familiar with the intervalic structure of your major, minor, diminished and augmented triads in root position, at the very least. I will spell them out for you here:

Maj= maj 3, min 3
minor= min 3, maj 3
diminished= min 3, min 3
augmented= maj 3, maj 3

Notice how the major and minor are opposite from each other? Notice the augmented triad with 2 major 3rds? Hmmm...we can use that just by playing on the first 2 strings (interval of major 3). Play open strings 2 and 1, then move to fret 8 and play strings 2 and 1. You've just played a Caug arpeggio (C E G# C). Same for diminished on strings 2 and 3, figure it out.

This stuff is important if you want it to be. For me, personally, I couldn't live without it. When I was a kid getting into music, I decided that this stuff was something I needed to learn, so I went about learning on my own in 8th and 9th grade when everyone else was busy with English and Science. Of course, I made time to stare at the girls....
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Mike Neer · From: NJ

It's no fun when I'm doing all the talking. Laughing

If I can find some time this weekend, I want to take the discussion a little deeper.
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Laurence Pangaro · From: Brooklyn, NY

Thanks Mike,

This is great! It's really helpful to have harmony and especially chord substitution re-cast specifically for non pedal steel even if you have a pretty strong theory background. Maybe you should write a book.

ciao,
LP

(p.s. You mentioned the Emmons E9 tuning in another thread. I and another forum-ite would like to have that spelled out if possible. Maybe it would be better to post it in that thread. Thanks!)

Mike Neer · From: NJ

In one of the previous posts I wrote about intervals. I think I might have mentioned the tritone, but I'm too lazy to go back and read. Anyway, I would like to talk about this little wonder, the tritone.

Surely, you've heard of this miracle, this phenomenon that is far beyond the comprehension of us casual musicians, right? I mean it is such a terrifying concept that only schooled musicians with Julliard degrees or Jazz musicians can understand it, right? Wrong.

First, a tritone is an interval. It is the distance of 3 whole tones--hence the name tritone. The wonderful thing about the tritone is that it is present in every dominant chord. The interval between the maj 3rd and the min 7th chord tone is a tritone. Take C7: C E G Bb. The distance between E (the 3rd) and Bb (the b7) is 3 whole tones, or a tritone. What exactly is the significance of this?

Let's reverse these 2 chord tones; instead of E being the 3rd and Bb being the 7th, let's switch them. So now you have: ? Bb ? E. We can fill in the blanks by figuring out that Bb is the major 3rd of the Gb, or as we will call it, the F# chord. (Actually, the easiest way to figure it out is to just go up 3 whole tones from the root (C). When you've reached 3 WTs, you will have landed on F#). E would be the b7, so by switching the roles of those 2 notes, we've created the skeleton of the F#7 chord. I say skeleton, but in actuality, just by playing those 2 notes, you have a very good idea what chord is being played. So, anywhere you have the combination of the 2 notes A# (Bb) or E (Fb in the key of Gb), you have implied C7 and F#7.

Going back to the example of the Blues progression that we used: C7 F7 G7. This is a perfect opportunity to try this out. Take the 2 notes that constitute a tritone interval from each of the chords and find its tritone cousin. With C7, we know the the 3rd and b7 are E and Bb, and that the cousin (hey, they have different mothers) chord is F#7. Now what about F7? Well the 3rd is A and the b7 is Eb, and we know that F + 3 WTs = B. So the tritone cousin of F7 is B7. Now do the same for G7. Ok, you get the notes B and F, and the cousin chord is Db7. Let's try to plug that all in. It's best to see this in action with a guitar or piano, if you have one handy.

OK, we're not going to play full chords, just the 2 note skeletons we've talked about. I will call the first tritone pair TTa. When we reverse the order of the notes, it will be TTb. Got it? So CTTa = E Bb, CTTb = Bb E; FTTa = A Eb, FTTb = Eb A; GTTa = B F, GTTb = F B.

OK, here we go. Each chord gets 2 beats, unless noted.

/CTTa - CTTb -/FTTa - FTTb -/CTTa - GTTb -/
/CTTa - CTTb -/FTTa - - -/FTTb - - -/
/CTTb - GTTa -/CTTb - CTTa -/
/GTTb - GTTa -/FTTa - FTTb -/CTTa - GTTb -/
/CTTb - GTTa -/

I hope that makes sense, because it was a pain in the butt to type! See, you just played the 12-bar blues using only 2 notes from each chord. By the way, these 2 notes, the 3rd and the 7th are called Leading Tones.

We've established a relationship between the 2 chords that share the same tritone interval. What if we combined all the notes of the 2 chords (in this case, I will use the enharmonic key of Gb):
C E G Bb and Gb Bb Db Fb(E, which I will call it from now on).

Let's put them in order: C Db E Gb G Bb. This is what is referred to as a tritone scale. It only has 6 notes. Let's bookmark this--we'll come back to it.

There is another chord which contains a tritone, actually two tritones. Care to guess what it is? Hint: we said earlier that it was a close relative to the dominant chord (there's one in every dom chord). You got it: the diminished chord.

Things are about to get heavy, so we'll stop here and try to contemplate this and the meaning of life....

If you want me to go forward, let me know. Otherwise, I'll just go upstairs and torture my kids with this stuff. Give a musician Saturday night off and this is the crazy stuff he'll do.

LP, the E9 tuning that Buddy and several others used is E B G# F# D B G# E, from top to bottom.
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Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

Great explanations, Mike. I recall that Johnny Smith, the great jazz guitarist used to think about chords as containing triads just as you explained. The best thing of course is just "hear" all this stuff completely intuitively, like Wes Montgomery. Unfortunately, the rest of us have to sweat and strain.

Mike Neer · From: NJ

I just wanted to add this simple fact that any tuning based on a 7th chord (C6/A7, E13, E9, etc.) contains a tritone, so it would be very easy to test the aforementioned blues progression out.
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Steve Ahola · From: Concord, California

Will Jaffe · From: California, USA

Danny James · From: Summerfield Florida USA

I know I have certainly learned a lot from this, and I am truly looking forward to seeing all of what Mike and the others have to contribute. I too plan on copying every bit of it for future reference. It is way too much for this old timer to absorb and remember. Smile

Thanks so much for all of everyones input, and please continue.
Danny

Edward Meisse · From: Santa Rosa, California, USA

For anyone with an 8 string guitar who plays in a C6 tuning, the Basic C6 book by Buddy Emmons, for sale right here on the forum, is a great resource for scalar improvisation. His site used to also have some minor pockets that I have studied as well. But I've heard the site is down. It's a shame. I got more out of his material than anything else I've looked at.
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Russ Wever · From: Kansas City

Sonny Jenkins · From: Texas Masonic Retirement Center,,,Arlington Tx

A little program that goes right along with all this is Karlis Abolins "Guitar Map",,,it's been around for years and I'm sure many "old timers" on the forum have it. Karlis has been kind enough to share it with anyone who wanted it. He is a forum member,,,do a search.

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

Mike Neer · From: NJ

The subject of Harmony is so vast that it is easy to get lost on a tangent. I have that habit sometimes of just taking off on a tangent. It happens a little less with age, I think, because the mind tends to settle down a bit. But even now, just sitting here typing this, I get excited about the subject. Strange, I know.

I feel the need to take a few steps backward, as I've had a couple of emails from enthusiastic folks who I don't want to confuse further. I think this is a really good opportunity to discuss these things. I thoroughly enjoy it and I know others do, as well, but I know that there are some folks who are on the fence about learning it. If you don't mind, I'd like to take a minute of your time to try to convince you why you might want to give it a try. I don't think it'll hurt your playing; in fact, I guarantee it makes it better.

I said earlier that when I was a kid, probably 12 or so, I just felt like there was something else that I
should know about music. My cousin used to take guitar lessons and I'd go and hang out waiting for
him, often spending my time looking at the sheet music books (there weren't many method books back then, maybe Alfred and the Mickey Baker books). When he would come out with his manuscript book,
I'd make him explain to me what he did. He only took lessons for a few months, but that made me
believe that there was some kind of system that I was missing out on.

From that point forward, I was driven to learn. I managed to get a few books from the library which
really got the ball rolling. I can tell you unequivocally that if you want to learn about Harmony, the first thing you need to do is to learn the Major scale inside and out, every key. Have all the degrees of the scale memorized so that if someone asks, "What is the 4th degree of Db?", you don't bat an eyelash. It also means memorizing this pattern: W W H W W W H. You know what that is? That is the map of the major scale: EVERY major scale. They are all the same. The only difference is, of course, pitch (and the names). They all follow that same pattern from the tonic: whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. If you know this formula, you can find you way through the scale starting from any degree. Now, I'm not talking about playing the scale, I'm talking about learning it upstairs.

OK, the next most important thing to learn is the chord formulas. This information is crucial, I cannot stress it enough. Follow along, if you will:

We build chords from the Major scale (not exclusively, but don't worry about that for now). For example, C Major: C D E F G A B C. We build in 3rds, which means we start from the root (C) and skip every other note. Let's say our desired chord is CMaj7--the formula is 1 3 5 7, very simple. You end up with C E G B. Notice how we skipped over the notes D F A? We're building in thirds. Let's say we want Cmin7--the formula for that chord is 1 b3 5 b7. We take the notes C E G B, but now we have to apply the formula. We do that by lowering the 3rd (b3) E, to Eb. Next we lower the 7th (b7) B, to Bb. So now we have the notes C Eb G Bb. That, my friends, is the Cmin7 chord. Remember, we build the chord from the root's, or tonic's, scale. If we want to find Dmin7, we use the D Major scale, etc.

So this is how you learn to construct chords. There are many chords and many formulas to learn. We are not even talking about inversions here, just root position chords. The more you do it on paper (yes, you should learn to write it in manuscript), the easier it will be to do it in your head. You can ask me for any chord and, in a matter of seconds, I can probably come up with at least 5 to 10 ways to play it. It's just from experience.

There is another major benefit to doing all this work: you will begin to develop your ears much further than you imagined. If you play by ear, like I do, your ears become so finely attuned to the notes and chords that you begin to recognize chords instantly--I'm not talking E Maj, I'm talking about more sophisticated harmonies that might have been mysteries to you before. The best part is, you begin to hear where the music is going! You don't need a road map, you follow the harmonies... OK, maybe I'm getting carried away, but I can honestly tell you that my ears are pretty highly developed to the point where I can transcribe a lot of music without an instrument in my hand. I've been doing it for many years, learning tunes in the car on my way to gigs (don't tell my bosses, please!). And I wasn't born with it, either.

I hope to continue on with this, it makes me feel good to sort through it all again. If this is too
self-indulgent for you, I apologize. With that, for now I'll leave you with these last 3 priceless words of infinite wisdom: Johann Sebastian Bach.
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Danny Bates · From: Fresno, CA. USA

Mike,

What a great contribution to the forum this thread is.

What you wrote is what a friend of mine showed me as a kid. It's exactly how I learned to play piano.

I think music theory is important because it shows you what notes to play, but ultimately, you want to hear the notes in your head and have the ability to play them at that exact moment.... in time... and with feeling please! Laughing

Matt Berg · From: Pennsylvania, USA

Mark Roeder · From: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Thanks Mike
It's always helpful to see how other players approach their instrument. Keep it coming.
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