LadyDpiano: Consonance and dissonance

Photo Credit: sixninepixels

Awhile back I wrote a post about slash chords. I was reading an interesting article, Slash Chords - Part II Beyond Western Harmony by Chaim Burstein. Here's an excerpt:

20th Century and the Avant-Garde

Slash chords can be a great way to get away from your typical diatonic chord progressions. One of my favorite ways to use slash chords almost completely disregards Western harmonic concepts. In the prior article on slash chords, we were only concerned with slash chords that do not appear as some form of a chord inversion. Today we are going to discuss every possible combination of triads over bass notes...

Below you'll find a chart that contains every possible major triad and bass note combination. I've organized it from what I find to be the most consonant to the most dissonant. Each new chord is labeled in levels of dissonance, with Level 1 being the least dissonant and Level 12 containing the most dissonant harmonies. This chart was created using only a piano and my ears.

Slash Chords Levels: Consonant (1) to Dissonant (12)

Level 1

C/C played C/EGC

Level 2

F/C played C/FAC

Level 3

Ab/C = C/EbAbC

Level 4

G/C = C/DGB

Level 5

Eb/C = C/EbGBb

Level 6

Bb/C = C/DFBb

Level 7

A/C = C/EAC#

Level 8

D/C = C/F#AD

Level 9

E/C = C/G#BE

Level 10

B/C = C/F#BD#

Level 11

Db/C = C/FAbDb

Level 12 = C/F#A#C#

Another way to use this chart is to increase or decrease the level of dissonance perceived by the listener. This can be very effective at high points in an arrangement... increase the level of dissonance with each new melody note. Try playing these on a piano and notice how the dissonance increases each time a new chord voicing is played. The top voice can act as the root, third or fifth of a chord. This gives you three different ways to harmonize any melody note at any given level of dissonance.

Harmonizing the note E natural three different ways

L.H. / R.H.

F/GCE

D/AC#E

A/G#BE

In case you missed it, here's an article I wrote on How-Do-I-Harmonize-These-Melodies.

You'll want to pick up a copy of The 300pg Piano by Ear Home Study Course to learn about chords, melodies, harmony and more music theory answers to your questions.

Hope you'll try these chords and see how they sound to your ears.

Wishing you all the best with your piano practice!

"The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you." B.B.King

Image via Wikipedia

Are you familiar with grace notes, or crushed notes? Do you use them in your piano playing? Nothing gets your sound more soulful quicker than throwing in some grace notes. Grace notes are notes that a played very briefly and often very softly before the "main" note is played.

Grace notes sound good because they introduce an element of notes that do not fall into the scale you are using. It brings a bit more emotion to your sound -- sometimes playfulness, sometimes sadness.

Like everything else in music, it's not a matter of throwing in any old chromatic note. Let me give you three principles for using grace notes that I learned:

1) Blues Grace Notes - if you are working in the major scale (or in the minor scale as well, I suppose, though I haven't worked that out yet) identify your major scale, then identify the minor blues scale of that same key. Like this:

C major scale: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C
C minor blues: C, Eb, F, Gb, G, Bb, C

Now, you don't have to pay in the minor blues scale per se (indeed, many major scale songs won't "allow" it), but you want to "borrow" notes from this second scale strategically.

You can apply this in your right hand soloing. Next time you're doing a run up the major scale, introduce some of the blues minor scale notes, very briefly, as grace notes.

Example. Instead of playing:

F, G, A, B

play

F, G, A, (Bb), B [Bb is your grace note]

You can also apply it to your chords. Instead of just playing

G - B - D [G major]

play

G - (Bb slide into) B - D

Practice doing it very lightly and subtly for a nice soul feel. But why does this work, besides the fact that you are borrowing from the blues scale? Well...

2) Minors into Majors - The basic idea is that just about any major chord can be made to sound soulful by sliding from its minor to its major in a split second. Works on piano, works even better on guitar.

Some examples:

C major = C, (Eb into) E, G
F major = F, (Ab into) A, C
G major = G, (Bb into) B, D

3) Tension and Release - Tension and Release is a major concept in writing lead parts. It is the process of building up a bit of tension via dissonance and then release that tension by creating consonance. In other words...

in the chord of C major (C-E-G) in your left hand with an F in your right hand
would be considered a dissonance, because although F falls into the C major scale, it is not part of the chord. However, slide that F up to G and now that G is consonant. Congratulations -- you've just created a tension and release.

Now, we can use this as another principle for grace noting. Instead of going straight into your intended note, touch on a dissonant, yet diatonic, note on the first beat then glide into your intended note. That should create a lovely bit of sweet emotion.

Some more applications of grace notes:

a) use it to create lovely 7th chords. Can't decide whether you want to use a bluesy dominant seventh or a jazzy major seventh? Use both! Crush the dominant into the major like this:

C-E-G-(Bb into) B

furthermore this relatively "open" voicing sounds pretty sophisticated, even "Burt Bacharach-ish."

b) create phat bass lines in a piano roll.

http://www.flipside.singingcrane.com/FL/index.php?topic=1725.0

c) relearn your major scales with blues grace notes thrown in to enhance your soloing.

* Related Posts:

http://ladydpiano.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html

* Urban Pro600

Beef up your playing drastically by adding these small
little grace notes, slides, and fill-ins to your chord
transitions. Jon utilizes this trick at least 80% of the
time and he spills the beans on exactly what to do to "own"
it.

http://ladydpiano.blogspot.com/2007/09/west-coast-urban-feel.html

http://www.hearandplay.com/441295/gkurban.html

Clip from GospelKeys Urban... How To Use Grace Notes