Theory: How do you quickly call out any chords from any note?

[maxim3]

I have a working knowledge of theory -- for example if you asked me to describe the chord consisting of:

Gb   Ab   C   Eb [fixed typo pointed out by themeandvariations, in the reply]

I would say it's the 3rd inversion of a Dom7 built on Ab, or the 3rd inversion of the Dom7 of the key of Db. I also understand the concept of how it would be named in the figured-bass system.

But my question is this: You know how you can build 13 basic chords from a single note -- e.g. starting on A, you have

1-4:  triads -          A major, minor, diminished, augmented

5-8:  inversions -    1st inversion of F major and F# minor
                            2nd inversion of D major and D minor

9-13: sevenths-       A Dom7
                             1st inversion of F Dom7
                             2nd inversion of D Dom7
                             3rd inversion of B Dom7
                             A Dim7

How do you quickly 'call out' any of those chords from any note?

In other words: Suppose I want to ruthlessly and humiliatingly order my slave pianist to demonstrate his chord knowledge, so I tell him "Play the single note B!" Then I want to tell him to play all those chords listed above, starting on B:

"Play B major! Minor! Augmented! Diminished!" No problem!

But the rest? What do I say?

(I suspect the answer to this question is within my grasp and perhaps lies on a website somewhere, but you know how the brain just refuses to work sometimes. If you know of a suitable website, just link me up.)

[themeandvariation]

"I have a working knowledge of theory -- for example if you asked me to describe the chord consisting of:

Gb   Ab   C   Db

I would say it's the 3rd inversion of a Dom7 built on Ab,"


no it is not..obviously, you don't  have a working knowledge of theory.

Besides, this question is really off base as it relates... (Also, in your '13 basic chords'  a dim is listed 2x)


You should instead go through scores and identify the harmonic underpinnings..

[maxim3]

Just to wrap up this not-very-useful post:

Traditional Figured-bass abbreviations are probably the way to go -- but the pianist and the note-caller must be aware that they are sticking exclusively to the figured-bass language.

Quick reminder, the goal here is to instantly know what is required above a given note. Our note is A. 'Caller' says the names on the right, and the 'player' should play chord on the left.

A C# E                   Major
A C E                     Minor
A C# E#                Augmented
A C Eb                   Diminished

A C F                     Six (6 3)
A C# F#                Six minor (I can't think of a better way to put this)
A D F#                  Six-four
A D F                     Six-four minor (same problem)

A C# E G                Seven (7 5 3)
A C Eb F                 Six-Five (6 5 3)
A C D F#                Four-Three (6 4 3)
A B D# F#              Four-Two (6 4 2)
A C Eb Gb               Dim 7

Rachmaninoff's article "Новое о пианизме" (Novoy o pianisme), which has been mentioned elsewhere in the forum, explains that in his day, terms such as "секстаккорд" (sekstakkord) were used and expected to be instantly understood by students, typically around 12 years old, in their fifth year of piano study.  'Sekstakkord' obviously means something like "six chord," that is, 6  3, and "квартсекстаккорд" (kvartsekstakkord) for a 6  4 chord -- kvart is obviously quart, or four. (Good thing Russian is an Indo-European language.)

I suppose there might be English equivalents for these, but I would be surprised if anyone used them nowadays, if they even exist.

[lostinidlewonder]

The real question is why would you want to do this? What benefit does it have for you? All of the interval additions are not really new chords they are just applying the scale interval to the chord, so if you memorise the scale you know all the intervals thus you know many chords inherently. Inversions don't really create new chords, its just rearranging the notes, quite an arbitrary exercises for those with some experience which does not require each inversion to be separately memorized. You really need to just know Major chords, pretty much everything just changes around this., use major as the compass.

[ted]

That was what my teacher did with me in my first lesson. Learning a huge variety of chord types like that is a very quick way to build keyboard vocabulary in the earliest stages, but it is only a crude introduction. Experimenting with their voicings over the whole keyboard, getting their sounds into the mind using different playing forms, and using them in fresh, dynamic combinations and progressions to make your own personal musical vocabulary takes many years; at least it did for me.

[maxim3]

ted:

Indeed... try to put yourself back mentally to those first few lessons, wherein the vast world of chords, inversions, alterations, etc. seemed like a huge dark forest, or frighteningly steep mountain. You looked for anything to grab on to in order to move forward.

All right, that's a bit dramatic, after all I am not a total beginner in music. Really I'm just trying to build a bit of efficient structure into applying the theory I already know towards facility at the keyboard.

[ted]

ted:

Indeed... try to put yourself back mentally to those first few lessons, wherein the vast world of chords, inversions, alterations, etc. seemed like a huge dark forest, or frighteningly steep mountain. You looked for anything to grab on to in order to move forward.

All right, that's a bit dramatic, after all I am not a total beginner in music. Really I'm just trying to build a bit of efficient structure into applying the theory I already know towards facility at the keyboard.

Fair enough. One habit I acquired very early on, and still use, was visualising a chord or scale as a subset of the whole keyboard, rather than just memorising it in one position. By that I mean if the label "Db scale" were given, I would get a visual and tactile sense of the whole set of notes it comprises "at once". Although my aural abilities were average, I was always a good visualiser. Doing this with a chord automatically takes care of its different voicings; it's just a matter of playing anything within the given subset. If one particular note has to be at the top or bottom it isn't a problem. This grew into an important asset for improvisation later on because it avoided my playing something in the same position and voicing every time and losing musical variety.

I have also developed the facility of thinking combinatorically, of "seeing" complicated chords and scales as combinations of simpler ones. A lot of players use the trick of thinking of, say, a ninth chord as a major plus a minor, but the principle can actually be extended a lot further than that. It seems a curious fact that thinking this way seems a lot easier than mentally trying to voice a seven note chord directly, although I have never been very clear why that should be the case.

These are just two ways of thinking about chords and scales, by no means the "right" ways, and they might not suit you. I do not think one "correct" way actually exists, but it is possible to build a collection of different ways of looking at something which all produce the same result, and your musical personality will be richer for it. You can think about an actual note subset, but you can also think about how you think about it - if clarity doesn't disappear in that statement, but I can't put it another way. Some jazz pianists get very good at this "meta-level" functioning.

I don't really know much about theory, classical or jazz, I've just gone my own way in pursuit of enjoyment and my ways might well be perfectly useless for you.  

[maxim3]

ted

I have listened to and read a bit more of your stuff, and you seem like you know your way around the keyboard pretty damned well. I'm aiming to get to where you are. Indeed there are many individual ways to do it. For one thing, I like the idea of being able to instantly play any scale or arpeggio from any given note, as was a minimum requirement for 5th or 6th year Russian piano students in Rachmaninoff's day.

I suspect that piano training back then still aimed to produce competent improvisers, even though improvising was falling out of fashion; pedagogy and theory always lags behind developments in the real world.

Quote from Kenneth Hamilton's book After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance (2007):

"The practice of free improvisation, however, was hardly unique to Liszt. It carried on throughout the century, though to an ever lessening extent. Even as late as 1925 a two-volume manual for pianists by Gerhard Wehle, mostly dealing with the extempore treatment of folk songs and entitled Die Kunst der Improvisation (The Art of Improvisation), appeared in Germany to such acclaim that it was in its third edition by 1927 and was reprinted once again in 1940. In his introduction Wehle lamented the decline of improvisation but hoped that the usefulness of the skill for pianists accompanying silent films might give it new life, a prospect soon blighted by the advent of the talkies."

[ted]

maxim3:

Thanks for the interesting quote. No, free improvisation was not generally taught when I was young. I was just supremely lucky in that my teacher for my teenage years was probably the only one in Auckland, possibly in New Zealand, who placed the slightest importance on it. He told me very early on that I didn’t have what it takes to be a professional classical pianist. A jazz pianist possibly, with a lot of work, but I had little desire to play jazz. So while I did study much classical and jazz with him, most of the lesson time was spent with my improvising things and his criticism of them. I had no idea how unusual it was for a teacher to do this back then. The fact that he could repeat anything he heard, more or less, after one hearing helped with this but gave me an inferiority complex for years until I realised no one else could do it either. He kept telling me that although it would take me ten years to get really fluent creatively it would reward me greatly in future decades. He was right about the second part but I don’t consider I found my piano voice until I was fifty-five.

I always thought it sad that, as one of the country’s foremost professionals, he permitted few people to hear his free, personal improvisation, presumably because other professionals might think them improper. I would like to think free improvisation has shed the bias of being inferior music, what with Jarrett and a few others, but sadly I doubt it has, even with advances in digital recording.

[Bob]

It might not be so practical, but I'm remembering... I don't think stacked chords that are higher will be inverted that often, so that helps.  On the piano side, you might not play the bass note though.  Solo, yes.  Jazz combo, no, probably the bass has the root and the pianist has the third or seventh.

Either way, still good to know for learning.  One way to simplify it is thinking of two different chords.  You only need to think in terms of triads or seventh chords then (adding this other level by combing those).  ex. A dominant 13th, #11 is a dominant seventh chord plus a major triad built on the second step of a major scale built off that root note... ex. C dom 7 + D Maj triad.

To think more that way, it can be helpful to be able to play triads on each step of the scale (diatonically, although in minor you raise and lower the VI and VII chord/note areas to make it sound better, going up and down).  Being able to play seventh chords or major and minor scales.  Being able to arpeggiate triads and seventh chords.... Or maybe playing 13th chords diatonically over major and minor scales.  I don't think I've tried is, but the 13th will get all the notes of the scale/chord.

Knowing how the "lower scale" intervals line up/match the "extended" scale intervals helps.  ie 2nd = 9th, 3rd = 10th, 4th = 11th, 6th = 13th, etc.  (They do match, but it also matters how you think about them, where they are in an actual chord, how it actually sounds... Someone could easily argue that a 6th is nothing like a 13th, which is also true.)  And it depends how an actual chord actually functions

And then there are common voicings of the chords.  Some notes are left out.  For understanding, knowing/seeing/understanding them all is probably helpful.  I don't know the standard voicing for all those.

And then in reality there are also suspended chords, added note chords, etc.

[maxim3]

Thanks again for responses. Bob, indeed, it does help to think of smaller chords stacked on other chords. Such complex chords are a bit beyond me for now but it certainly helps to see them like that in the bigger picture.

I have been doing some more reading and research and it seems I should get into learning applied jazz theory, even though I don't really like jazz; for in the modern context it seems that jazz is where it's at for serious improvisatory-oriented applied theory.

Just as a kind of daily warmup, I have found for example a routine in a very well-known how-to-improvise-jazz type of book (see attachment). This is a way of practicing scales which forces you to pay more attention than just doing the usual up and down way, and it's expandable. This is the kind of thing I'm looking for.

[Bob]

I'm not an expert at it.  That's what helped me more with it.  I could see how chords and scales were the same thing.  The upper notes weren't as bad as they initially appeared.  Triads... Sevenths... branching out to ninths... and then everything beyond that.

There are also common types of each extended chord, like a #11 chord, or the suspended chords. 

Voicings on all that, I definitely haven't mastered.