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Topic: Upper Structure Triads |
Tim Toberer
From:
Nebraska, USA
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Posted 17 Dec 2024 7:53 am |
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Are these useful? I don't know, seems like they should be! I made this little chart just for reference.
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 17 Dec 2024 8:34 am
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You would be well served to buy and work through this book called Using Upper-Structure Triads by Suzanna Sifter.
I highly recommend it.
https://amzn.to/3ZE5Fjg
_________________
Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links |
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Tim Toberer
From:
Nebraska, USA
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Posted 17 Dec 2024 9:54 am
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That looks like a good one  Knowing they exist and using them are 2 different things. I started thinking like this first when trying to come up with a lap steel tuning and now how to create chords and harmonies using pedals. A cool exercise is just to play these triads against a static note. On C6 or A6 you can down tune the lowest note and play the triads up the neck on the upper strings. Or on standard guitar play the D shape up and down the neck in Drop D. It kind of gets it in your ear. I have noticed I am starting to recognize them when I am listening to some of my favorite jazz players, which is exciting. |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 17 Dec 2024 12:06 pm
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| Pete Townsend be proud š |
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Tim Toberer
From:
Nebraska, USA
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Posted 18 Dec 2024 5:03 am
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| Fred Treece wrote: |
| Pete Townsend be proud š |
I'll take It! It might be premature though. Printing off a sheet is easy.
I am not sure how far I will get with these, but it certainly could open up the fretboard in some interesting ways. I get bored with the same old chords all the time. Anyone playing C6 is already using this idea if they are playing the major triad built off the 5th which is the rootless CM9th. It's just kind of a different way of thinking about harmony. Many of these probably aren't that useful.
I am thinking of mapping these out for the common cadences, to hopefully find some cool resolutions. How do the G7 US relate to the C major US etc. That may be more useful. In jazz it seems like all roads are leading here. |
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Tim Toberer
From:
Nebraska, USA
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Posted 18 Dec 2024 5:17 am
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| Mike Neer wrote: |
You would be well served to buy and work through this book called Using Upper-Structure Triads by Suzanna Sifter.
I highly recommend it.
https://amzn.to/3ZE5Fjg |
Here is the first review of the book!
I HAVE FINALLY FOUND THE BOOK I HAVE SEARCHED FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE! I would give this book 1000 stars if I could! This book is more than what I expected. It is exactly what I have been searching for all of these years. I have been playing keyboards for decades without learning the system. This book teaches me the system so that I can be creative in ways that I could never have imagined. Now...I have the building blocks for harmony. All I have to do is practice diligently everyday. It's up to me. I believe that I will become a harmony virtuoso if I follow this course precisely as instructed. The audio exercises are just what is needed. I can use those audio exercises to compare to my own efforts. I would enroll in the Berklee online course if I had the money. However, this is an excellent substitute for me. I will purchase more of these textbooks in the future. Needless to say...I am VERY HAPPY with this purchase. Now...it's time to get to work! I'm so excited![/quote] |
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Nick Fryer
From:
Ohio, USA
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Posted 18 Dec 2024 5:48 am
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Things get really fun when you create triad pairs which yield a hexatonic scale. Can be played using the structures paired or more linear ideas w the hexatonic scale.
_________________
www.fryerguitarpickups.com |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Tim Toberer
From:
Nebraska, USA
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Posted 19 Dec 2024 8:27 am
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I have seen that one before. That is the most useful site I have found for stuff like this. These upper structures are most useful on dominant chords because it sort of simplifies thinking about all the possible alterations. You also double your money when you start thinking in terms of the tritone substitutions. It seems like you could take it a step further and combine it with the Barry Harris dominant family idea. Way over my pay grade at this point. And how to approach all this stuff on steel guitar? Still working on that, but I love the concepts!
| Quote: |
| Things get really fun when you create triad pairs which yield a hexatonic scale. Can be played using the structures paired or more linear ideas w the hexatonic scale. |
This is something I am only mildly familiar with. This reminds me of the tetrachord system only creating 6 note scales by removing the avoid note and thinking in 3 note chords instead of 4. Seems more useful! As usual I found a Jens Larson video breaking it down in his super relaxed approachable style! Starting at 6:14 he's explains how to create a 6 note scale for "a chord in a key". Damn he makes it sound easy! My questions are how do you find the avoid note? Does this work for any chord in any key? How do you pick the scale? He gives some great examples of excercies and 2-5-1 licks. He also stresses something he talks about alot which is playing your harmonized scales as arpeggios, which really starts to connect the harmonic and melodic worlds of all these boring theory exercises. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVjqS7R5HEQ
Here is another video that explains the same concept, but using software that looks to be created by an alien from the Upper East Side! It's good to know there are people more nerdy about music than me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmHhabJ-o4M |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 19 Dec 2024 9:18 am
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The most practical use for upper structures is dominant chords / tensions.
Iāve been preaching this stuff for years because you canāt view the steel guitar the way you can a guitar. You need to come up with alternate approaches to dealing with limitations. That is what I have done since I started getting serious about the instrument. You have to play what you hear or to what your esthetic is, so for me, there was no direct way other to reorganize my thinking for the instrument as compared to guitar.
But all of this just one aspect of it all. Itās harmony but it is not vocabulary. Creating melodies within the harmony is what is most important, and to jazz up your playing, you donāt play it straight but incorporate a lot of chromaticism, which is not done randomly, but methodically. I teach this stuff to students and it is very effective.
I hate when autocorrect ruins perfectly good words, ergo my edit.
_________________
Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links
Last edited by Mike Neer on 19 Dec 2024 10:58 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 19 Dec 2024 10:20 am
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| Quote: |
| My questions are how do you find the avoid note? Does this work for any chord in any key? How do you pick the scale? |
What I learned from the Ted Greene books is that the āscaleā is based on the notes of the arpeggiated chord tones, and vice-versa. If your chord is Dm, then the scale could be built from a Dm9 chord, which is basically C/Dm, and there are your 6 notes. I think that is the same concept that Jens is demonstrating in the video.
Avoiding the B note in that case is a matter of taste. I think subtle use as a passing tone would be okay.
When moving on to G7b9, Jens suggests the C harmonic minor scale minus the C note. First question, why C harmonic minor? Because C is the tonal center of Dm-G7-C, and C harmonic minor has some great notes to alter a G7, whereas the C major scale does not. Second question, why leave out the C? Because we donāt want a suspended 4th in the G7alt arpeggio and weāre trying to hide that C because itās the Root of the target chord coming up next. Also, that scale generates a few interesting triads to choose from to build a āscaleā. Jens chooses BĀ°/Eb+ for demonstration purposes.
Emily Remler might suggest the G# melodic minor scale, because all 7 notes would work over a basic G7. Ted Greene might also do this, though he would call it an altered G7 dominant scale.
The Harmonic minor scale works particularly well for the iim7b5-V7alt-Im type progressions that are all over Latin-flavored music.
Leaving the F out of a Cmaj7/9 scale should be self explanatory, but againā¦listen to how cool that suspended 4th over the maj7 chord sounds on the sax at the end of David Bowieās ā Changesā. It resolves to the major 3rd eventually, but it keeps you hanginā on a bit!
I kinda like this slash chord arpeggiated scale thing. Choosing arps for the V7 would be dependent on what kind of chord is accompanying the soloist. Hopefully the accompanist has the good taste to stay out of the way.
Hopefully this confuses everyone even further š |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 19 Dec 2024 10:45 am
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| You are so right, Mike. This is very conceptual stuff, in only one category of conceptual stuff. In performance, our job is to make music out of our grasp of these concepts. That hanging 4th over the maj7 chord is meant to make the listener feel something. Itās not just the note, itās how you play it. |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 19 Dec 2024 11:05 am
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| Fred Treece wrote: |
| You are so right, Mike. This is very conceptual stuff, in only one category of conceptual stuff. In performance, our job is to make music out of our grasp of these concepts. That hanging 4th over the maj7 chord is meant to make the listener feel something. Itās not just the note, itās how you play it. |
When they say things like "learn all the rules, then forget them," I think it's right on the money. When you learn the rules, it's like you're able to see the boundaries that you're going to break--or I should say hear. Much of the time when I am coming up with lines or ideas, I know what the "right notes" are, but are they the right notes that I want to hear. Sometimes they defy easy categorization. That is what makes music exciting for me, knowing that I can surprise people, maybe even confound people, with a note choice. When I used to listen to records as a kid I could always hear notes that sounded wrong to me, like a dorian scale being played over a natural minor sound. I would always remember that as being maybe a mistake that the guitar player made. But sometimes the choices are even wilder, which makes you think "what's he thinking there?" That is all I ever wanted to do with soloing and playing melodies: play unexpected surprises that people would mentally bookmark.
_________________
Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 19 Dec 2024 11:22 am
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| Quote: |
| But sometimes the choices are even wilder, which makes you think "what's he thinking there?" |
Neil Young could play one note over 2-5-1 and make it sound great. Charlie Parker too, no doubt. And then play 36 notes over one chordā¦ |
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Nick Fryer
From:
Ohio, USA
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Posted 19 Dec 2024 4:42 pm
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Triad pairs can be applied to all qualities of chords. The pairs create the scale.
The pairs are typically but not always the same quality triad and a whole step apart.
A basic example would be over CMaj7
Triad pair C + D (Major)
Hexatonic scale from this set is
CDEF#GA
Another example over D-7
Triad pair F + G (Major)
Scale
FGABCD
Another example C7
Pair Bb + C
CDEFGBb
Take a look at the sheet you posted and notice which pairs are a whole step apart and start building your sounds and scales from there. Listen to how McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea , Coltrane, Michael Brecker use them. But it doesnāt have to be modern jazz, you can use this stuff in all styles.
_________________
www.fryerguitarpickups.com |
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Tim Toberer
From:
Nebraska, USA
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Posted 20 Dec 2024 6:25 am
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| Mike Neer wrote: |
Iāve been preaching this stuff for years because you canāt view the steel guitar the way you can a guitar. You need to come up with alternate approaches to dealing with limitations. That is what I have done since I started getting serious about the instrument. You have to play what you hear or to what your esthetic is, so for me, there was no direct way other to reorganize my thinking for the instrument as compared to guitar.
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We have a unique set of limitations with the steel guitar for sure! Adding pedals helps, but in the end many of the same limitations are still there. That is why I am trying to think in triads or "structures". The names of these concepts are intimidating, but really these are triads. Thinking this way simplifies things so they are easier to understand. With a standard A6 or C6 you have your Major and minor triads with inversions, right in the tuning. A couple easy slants gets you diminished and augmented. I have found that I really think in terms of chords, so this just feel natural to me. I am trying to expand into thinking in scales, but not going so well! Playing simple melodies will never be simple on steel guitar, that is where the creativity comes in!
I have really learned alot from reading your posts and watching your videos Mike!
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| Hopefully this confuses everyone even further š |
No way, your explanations are perfect.
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Triad pairs can be applied to all qualities of chords. The pairs create the scale.
The pairs are typically but not always the same quality triad and a whole step apart. |
Thanks Nick, this seems to make sense. This concept is worth spending some time on. I probably won't be playing like Coltrane or Chick Corea any time soon( ever), but I can see how this hexatonic thing could be useful. Part of me wants to learn it just out of curiosity, same as the upper structure thing. It is just more tools. |
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Nick Fryer
From:
Ohio, USA
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Posted 20 Dec 2024 6:31 am
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I canāt stress enough that this stuff is not about playing any one particular style. Itās about creating melody and coloring the harmony. Obviously certain harmonies lend themselves to some styles more than another but there is so much in here that can be applied to all styles. Also, I will add that the nature of the triad creates a rhythmic approach that becomes language. So there is language embedded within the structure of the sounds.
_________________
www.fryerguitarpickups.com |
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