Does anyone ever think "what I need here is a Cm7b5" .... or do they noodle about and when they like the sound it eventually gets written down and someone reverse-engineers it into standard nomenclature ... I think that about some Beatles songs .
K
I would hope that anybody considering a m7b5 chord would use it where they wanted to emphasise the chord they are moving to, as this type of chord is most useful as a passing chord which adds a bit of interest. But I play in a skiffle band so would consider that all a bit highbrow!
Morgan Plus 4 Royal Enfield Classic 350 Brompton M6L Giant TCX Advanced
Chords needed to play the complete Status Quo songbook A. D. E
Chords needed to play the opening two bars of ‘Round Midnight by Thelonius Monk Ebm. Ebm/D. Ebm/Db. Cm7b5 Abm Db7
Unapologetic Jazz Fan
I take your point, but that's not actually a brilliant example.
Leaving aside the fact that it's in a flat key which makes the chords seem more difficult It would on first glance appear to have the same basic A D E structure that you'd find in a blues song in A Maj, just with a flat 3 to give the minor key - but FRancis and Rick probably played power chords most of the time anyway so no real difference as there's no 3rd to worry about.
What's happening is a chromatic walk down the bass of the Ebm (the V chord), the Cm7b5 is a bit interesting as it's the diminished chord, for the key of D. The Abm is (apparently) the root and the Dd7 is a IV7, again familiar stuff. So its the same basic chords just half a step down and with that borrowed Diminished.
Tune a guitar down a half-step and then drop the low E down again to C# and Francis Rossi could knock this out out with no trouble.
What makes jazz so interesting to my ears is not the apparent complexity of the underlying chordal structure but that the choice of inversion is left to the player. So something like a Db7 could be played either straight with just the 7th, or with the addition of the 9th or even the 13th, and depending on the mood one wanted could be played in at least 4 positions on the neck. Listening to a top-notch jazzer noodle around some pretty superficially simple chord progressions is where the magic happens.
Now back to my 3-chord blues. Jazz is too hard to play. And they don't like distortion pedals
I’ve been rumbled, although, It’s just the first two bars ........ I think you’ve already lost Frank and Rick
Last edited by Kevcaster; 18/01/2108:46 PM.
Kevin
2009 Morgan Plus 4 - 4 seater 2015 Subaru Forester 2.0ltr
Does anyone ever think "what I need here is a Cm7b5" .... or do they noodle about and when they like the sound it eventually gets written down and someone reverse-engineers it into standard nomenclature ... I think that about some Beatles songs .
K
I would say it depends on the person playing. The Beatles knew a great deal more about music theory than they would have been necessarily aware of. The m7b5 construction is of course the 7th chord in any key so any guitarist would quickly learn the shape (definitely the shape with the 5th string root, and quite probably the shape with the 6th string root) so they could play it in whatever key they were in.
As FT says, it's usually played as a passing chord and of course every blues player will know it as the diminished which you'd play in bar 2 of a 12 bar when you want to spice it up a bit. I reckon most blues players, being lazy sods like me would do it just by dropping the Dominant 7 shape down a fret before returning to the root - think of the intro to Deep River Blues for example without worrying that it's not exactly correct.
But yes, the mood and the sound probably come before the theory 99% of the time.
Last edited by Hamwich; 18/01/2106:54 PM. Reason: Dominant 7 of course, it's blues!
Tim H. 1986 4/4 VVTi Sport, 2002 LR Defender, 2022 Mini Cooper SE
Does anyone ever think "what I need here is a Cm7b5" .... or do they noodle about and when they like the sound it eventually gets written down and someone reverse-engineers it into standard nomenclature ... I think that about some Beatles songs .
K
I would hope that anybody considering a m7b5 chord would use it where they wanted to emphasise the chord they are moving to, as this type of chord is most useful as a passing chord which adds a bit of interest. But I play in a skiffle band so would consider that all a bit highbrow!
All guitar players have little tricks like walking a bass note down to the next chord .... just intuitive stuff from hours spent twiddling away on the fretboard ... it's not til you write those things down that you look dead clever on paper.
It would be unfair to show the written down chords of a jazz tune as a deterrent. Either Monk, for example, had the specific sound of a key in mind or he had wanted to make it easier for all the wind instruments to play. I approach jazz from listening and the theory comes later. A lot of jazz goes back mainly to two types of structure, the 12 bar Blues and the American song form.
The art in my view is the timbre and the voicing. If jazz is just "difficult" it is not necessarily good music. But if it is based on blus or blue notes, it can sound very emotional, even if it has a lot of through chords and some twists. E.g. Goodbye Porkpie Hat by Mingus, that sounds so cool fluid, but is soo complex. That's the charm and the joy, isn't it?
All guitar players have little tricks like walking a bass note down to the next chord .... just intuitive stuff from hours spent twiddling away on the fretboard ... it's not til you write those things down that you look dead clever on paper.
K
Ain't that the truth - witness for example just how easy it is to show somebody a neat lick rather than just describing exactly what's going on in musical terms.
Every rock guitarist knows the basic riff to AC/DC's Thunderstruck for example, but I bet less than 10% know it's in Phrygian Dominant, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Angus was in the 10%
Tim H. 1986 4/4 VVTi Sport, 2002 LR Defender, 2022 Mini Cooper SE
Glad to be reminded about Doc Watson. The overlap of jazz and blues made for a great combination when a jazz rhythm section was combined with two folk / blues guitarists and a folk singer to form Pentangle. But if you think jazz is not melodic, try listening to Erroll Garner playing Misty.⁵....sublime.
Glad to be reminded about Doc Watson. The overlap of jazz and blues made for a great combination when a jazz rhythm section was combined with two folk / blues guitarists and a folk singer to form Pentangle. But if you think jazz is not melodic, try listening to Erroll Garner playing Misty.⁵....sublime.
Agreed, Pentangle did some nice stuff. I have their Cruel Sister album and it still gets played now and again.
I would also definitely agree that jazz can be melodic, but I think the difficulty some people have is that jazz can be many other things too, one could equally use the adjectives complex, impenetrable, dissonant, arhythmic, and so on. If you aren't familiar with the genre, it can be a bit tricky working out what's going on.
Me, I love a bit of Joe Pass, John Coltrane or Miles Davis, but some of the more outré stuff bores me rigid. I remember sitting through a 2 hour Trilok Gurtu gig one night waiting for it to improve. Sadly it did not, mind you at least I made it to the end. We walked out of a Sun Ra Arkestra gig after about 20 minutes.
Tim H. 1986 4/4 VVTi Sport, 2002 LR Defender, 2022 Mini Cooper SE
... I think that about some Beatles songs .
