As you know from this past lesson, a dyad is a 2-note combination.

People still debate over whether it should officially be called a “chord” or if it’s just an interval. (Those who want to keep it just an “interval” believe that chords start at three or more notes).

But who cares what you think of them as — they can enhance your playing! :-)

This post can’t be too long because I need to get back on the freeway down to Long Beach. My grandma is still in the hospital and when it seems like she is recovering, something else happens to knock us backward. Pray for her.

So here are my top 5 favorite dyads to play…

1) Power chords

I talked about “power chords” in this previous lesson.

They are intervals that span a fifth. An example of a power chord is from “C” to “G.”

You can use them to power up most chords because if you think about, they all possess that perfect fifth interval (except for diminished and augmented chords).

When playing extended chords like sevenths, ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths, some people use power chords on their left, therefore, freeing up their right hand to focus on the upper tones in the chord.

2) Tritone

You can find extensive information on tritones in these two lessons.

I call them the little cousin of the power chord.

If you know your power chords and can lower your fifth tone a half step, then you know your tritones! That’s all they are!

They are an interval of a flatted fifth. So instead of playing “C” to “G,” you play “C” to “Gb.”

These are also found in dominant 7 chords. For example, a C dominant 7 chord has these notes: C + E + G + Bb. Do you notice the tritone from “E” to “Bb?” (Don’t worry, over time you’ll start recognizing them quickly).

Try experimenting with certain tritones on your left hand and various dominant, major, and even minor chords on your right hand. You’ll be amazed at what you come up with.

3) Ditone

I remember a few years back when gospel musicians started throwing this “fancy” word around. LOL :-)

It’s basically the Greek way to say “major third.”

But I like the use of “ditone” because it relates it to the tritone, which has a similar function.

Basically, ditones have 2 whole steps between them. “C” to “E” is an example of a ditone.

“Tritones” are their bigger sisters (they have 3 whole steps between them).

Essentially, anywhere you play a tritone, try its little brother and you’ll get a different feel.

In fact, you can combine them: C + E + Bb

Notice the ditone between “C” and “E” and the tritone between “E” and “Bb.”

(I know… I know… looks like a dominant 7 chord to me too! But there are little nuances like this that make all the difference.)

Like this chord…

C aug 7 (#9)

…you can easily voice this chord a million different ways but notice the use of the ditone at the bottom — then the tritone interval between the “E” and “Bb” — and even the use of a quartal chord up top. See this past lesson for more info on quartal chords.

4) Major 7 interval

Sometimes, you don’t want a power chord on your left. Like when you’re playing some type of extended major chord (major 9, major 11, etc), maybe you just want to play “C” and the higher “B” on your left hand and the rest of your chord on the right hand.

This lesson from last month really illustrates what I’m talking about.

But the idea is to try it any time an extended major chord is necessary.

5) “b7″ interval

The last dyad you should get used to is the b7 interval. It’s basically the same as the major 7 interval, except you lower the 7th a half step. So instead of “C + B,” you’ll play “C + Bb.”

You’d use this one just like the tritone and ditone… same function.

Notice on the chord above that “C to Bb” is the outer shell that results from putting a ditone “C + E” together with a tritone “E + Bb.” Similar to the major 7 interval, you’d simply play a b7 interval when you want to use less notes and keep the sound open.

Until next time —

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Most people just classify chords by name and chord quality (major vs minor, augmented vs diminished).

But today, I want to show you another world. Here’s how to think of chords by the number of notes they contain.

This will be short and to the point.

Triads

Music theorists still argue over whether a chord officially starts with 2 or 3 tones played at the same time. It seems like 3 is more accepted. But for the sake of knowing, I’ll give you the name of a two-note combination at the end of this post.

But, for now, let’s start with the popular “triad.”

Any time you have a collection of three notes played together, you’re playing a triad.

Most basic chords fall under this category.

• major triad (e.g. - C major: C + E + G)
• minor triad (e.g. - C minor: C + Eb + G)
• diminished triad (e.g. - C diminished: C + Eb + Gb)
• augmented triad (e.g. - C augmented: C + E + G#)

So any time you hear, “give me a _______ triad,” that’s only asking for a 3-toned chord. Don’t give the composer or music director more than that! After all, in some arrangements, less is better.

Tetrads

Then next, there is what we call “tetrads.”

These are chords using four notes. Seventh chords are essentially tetrads.

• major seventh (e.g. - C major 7: C + E + G + B)
• minor seventh (e.g. - C minor 7: C + Eb + G + Bb)
• diminished seventh (e.g. - C diminished 7: C + Eb + Gb + Bbb)
• augmented seventh (e.g. - C augmented 7: C + E + G# + Bb)

Pentads

Chords using five notes are called “pentads.” Yes, that sounds like the pentatonic scale from this lesson (5-tone scale).

(In fact, there’s such a thing as tritonic and tetratonic scales too! But let’s save that for another lesson.)

Ninths are a form of pentads.

For example, C major 9 is C + E + G + B + D. Five notes!

Again, it’s just a general term for a chord with 5 notes.

Hexads and Heptads

And lastly, “hexads” and “heptads” are the names given to 6 and 7-toned chords, respectively.

An example of a hexad is an eleventh chord and an example of a heptad is a thirteenth chord.

Other classifications

I also promised to give you the name of a 2-toned combination, even though its merit as a chord is questionable…

We call those “dyads.” Others choose to just reference them as “intervals.” Power chords and tritones fall under this category.

And for extra credit, a “monad” is a single note. The “chromatic scale” comes to mind, which is basically composed of twelve monads.

So there you have it! A really fact-filled, reference post for today!

So if you ever hear me referencing any of these, you should now know what they mean!

Until next time —

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Lately, we’ve been talking about power chords, tritones, and substitutions.

Today, I want to show you how to use tritones and minor chords to form crazy-sounding dominant ninth chords.

Yes, that means if you know all your tritones (…there’s only really 6 to learn) and all your basic minor triads, then you can play dominant ninth chords — instantly!

But not just any kind of dominant ninth chord. This voicing sounds really good!

As you know, two musicians can play the same dominant chord and make their versions sound totally different. I’m going to give you a “behind-the-scenes” look at how that’s possible.

Here’s the regular C dominant 9 chord:

C E G Bb D

It’s basically a C dominant 7 chord with an added “9″ tone. If you don’t understand where the 9 comes from, read yesterday’s lesson.

There are only two steps to transforming this boring, “standard” ninth chord into a snazzy one!

Step 1: Play the tritone replacement for the dominant chord on your left hand. Remember, you can always substitute the appropriate tritone for a full dominant chord since a tritone utilizes the key tones of the dominant chord. Basically, take the 3rd and 7th tones out of the dominant chord and play them on your left hand. That is a tritone.

Example:

C dominant 9
C + E + G + Bb + D

You’d take out E and Bb and play them together.

* As you probably know, “E” is the third tone of the scale and “Bb” is the flat seventh tone.

So far, my left hand has “E + Bb” in it.

Step 2: After you have determined what tritone to play on your left hand, you’ll want to identify the 5th tone of the chord. You’ll want to play a minor chord off this tone on your right hand. If I’m playing a C9 chord, the 5th tone of C is basically G (which is in the chord). I’m simply going to play a G minor chord on my right hand.

It’s that simple! Find 5th tone of chord (or scale) and play its minor triad. Point blank!

Example:

C dominant 9
C + E + G + Bb + D

*The fifth tone in C major is G. Therefore, I’m going to play a G minor on my right hand: (G + Bb + D)

You can try different inversions of this G minor triad but I prefer first inversion, which means the keynote will always be on top: (Bb + D + G)

Same for the tritone, you can try the alternate inversion but I like my flat seventh on the bottom (Bb + E) but feel free to try the other way around too (”E + Bb”). They both work.

So my full chord looks like this:

C dominant 9
Bb + E on left hand /// Bb + D + G on right hand

If you do use the opposite tritone “E + Bb,” you may find that the “Bb” from your tritone meets the “Bb” from your G minor chord if you’re playing both hands close to each other. This is fine. It actually results in a nice little effect with simply “E” on the left hand and “G minor” on the right hand.

Now here’s the best part.

In gospel music, you can really work this! Try going down a half step and doing the same thing. Then quickly move that chord back up to your original chord.

So basically, take this same exact voicing of C9 and move it down to B9.

If you understand “big picture thinking” (yesterday’s post), this shouldn’t be hard.

What is the tritone that goes with “B?” Bam! That’s your left hand!

What’s the 5th tone of B? Play it’s minor chord in first inversion! Bam!

B dominant 9
A + D# on left hand /// A + C# + F# on right hand

*I’m using informal naming to make it easier to follow

And this B dominant 9 (a.k.a “B9″), which is the same exact chord as C9 (but moved down a half step), leads perfectly to the C9:

B dominant 9
A + D# on left hand /// A + C# + F# on right hand

C dominant 9
Bb + E on left hand /// Bb + D + G on right hand

In fact, if you play gospel music and know the classic “shouting” bass run:

C - E - F - Gb - G - A - Bb - B - C

*It’s a bass line so play each of these notes separately.

…Imagine playing this same dominant 9 voicing over each of these bass notes.

But here’s the thing — with this voicing, you don’t really play the bass. Either you rely on someone else playing the bass or you just play the chords rootless.

Imagine replacing each of those “shouting” bass notes with this dominant 9 voicing?

Try it! You already know the notes for C9 and B9.

Just take the same formula and match up the chords for each of these bass notes. Then practice playing them because it won’t be easy at first. You’ll love what you come up with! Sounds a little crazy at first but this is how top gospel musicians like Jason White and Michael Bereal think.

I hope you enjoyed!

Until next time —

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Wait!

I know you’re thinking… “whoa, big words.”

But let me assure you that this concept is very easy to understand.

Maybe you’ve heard of it. Perhaps you’ve seen these words thrown around forums. Well, I’m finally going to demystify tritone substitutions for you…

Yesterday, we talked about the tritone. I called it the little cousin of the power chord.

As you know, a tritone is made up of the 1 and b5 interval.

C major:

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

In C major, that’s C + Gb (G is the fifth… simply lower it to Gb).

It’s also known as a diminished fifth interval. (Diminish literally means to “make smaller”).

But here’s the thing with tritones. Unlike other chords, you really only have to learn 6 of them.

Yes! 12 is THE magic number in music. There are 12 major chords, 12 minor chords, 12 diminished chords… 12 of everything!

But with tritones, they are symmetric. In other words, they are the same if you take the bottom note and move it to the top. It doesn’t matter.

Take that “C + Gb,” flip it, and you’ll get “Gb + C” (it’s still a tritone).

On the other hand, if you take a perfect fifth like “C + G” and flip it, you won’t get the same fifth — instead, you’ll get a fourth (”G + C”). That’s because they aren’t symmetric.

Tritones are basically equal when you transpose them.

And get this…

They cut the octave perfectly in half.

Yes, believe it or not, the “b5″ (flatted fifth) marks the MIDDLE POINT of the octave.

So if you go from C to Gb and then from Gb to C, you would have encompassed an octave.

Octave = 12 half steps
Tritone = 6 half steps (or 3 whole steps, thus the name “tri”)

Because of all this, there are really only 6 of them. Gb + C is basically the same as C + Gb (at least for the purposes in which we’ll use them).

That means, all you have to do is learn these (and I’m going to use informal spellings just to keep thing simple):

C + Gb
Db + G
D + Ab
Eb + A
E + Bb
F + B

…And you’ll automatically know these, the “flipped” versions:

Gb + C
G + Db
Ab + D
A + Eb
Bb + E
B + F

So the key is to master not only these tritones played as chords (or dyads) but to master, for example, what a tritone up from C is. In other words, you should be able to know that the other “tritone” side of D is Ab. Or the other side of G is Db. Or the other side of E is Bb, and vise versa.

Because once you understand this, tritone substitution is easy.

It basically says that you can substitute the chord a tritone away for the chord you’re currently on. It works best with dominant chords but you can mess around with it on major and minor seventh chords as well.

But basically, let’s see how this works in a 2-5-1 chord progression…

Normally, in a 2-5-1, the “5″ tone is a dominant chord.

2-minor7 >>> 5-dominant7 >>> 1-major7

In C major, this plays out as:

D minor7 >>> G dominant7 >>> C major7

D minor7 = D + F + A + C
G dominant7 = G + B + D + F
C major7 = C + E + G + B

See the “G dominant 7?” The rules behind “tritone substitution” say that you can replace this G dominant7 with the dominant chord that is 3 whole steps away (or a “tritone” away).

That is the golden rule!

I said “follow” because, in my experience, you can usually play your original chord and then follow-up with the dominant chord a tritone away. And other times, you can substitute the original chord altogether.

And like I said, if you know your tritone relationships very well, it won’t take long to know that you can use Db dominant 7 in the place of G dominant 7 (”G7″ for short).

D minor 7 >>> Db dominant 7 >>> C major 7

D minor7 = D + F + A + C
Db dominant7 = Db + F + Ab + Cb
C major7 = C + E + G + B

*Cb is basically the same as playing “B” — just spelled differently.

Why does the Db7 work so well as a substitute for the G7 chord?

Well, let’s look at their notes:

G7:
G + B + D + F

Db7:
Db + F + Ab + B

(Yes, I know that “B” should say “Cb” but I’m trying to make a point here).

Regardless of what you call them, do you see the two common notes that these two chords share? In fact the notes they share (”B + F”) form a tritone, themselves! There are just tritones everywhere!

Next week, I’m going to show you how to use tritone substitutions in 1-6-2-5-1 chord progressions. I’ll even show you how to simply move JUST the bass note of most of your chords up a tritone, and how it can totally change the feel of your chords! You’ll love it!

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All the best —

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In this post, I’m going to break down the main movements in James Wrubel’s clip below (from our Hear & Play Jazz 101 course). This should be an interesting post and you’ll get a lot out of it…

It’s important to note that he has a recorded bass line, which gives him the opportunity to play chords in his left hand.

Here’s the basic pattern that he’s playing.

C7 —- F7 —- C7 —- C7 —- F7 —- F7 —- C7 —- C7 —- G7 —- F7 —- C7

Replay the video above and see if you can following along from the beginning. Every time he switches his chord go to the next chord. Every chord, for the most part is switching either every 4 beats or every 8 beats (sometimes you get two C or F chords in a row).

Normally you’d play a C7, F7, and G7 like this:

C E G Bb (C7 pronounced “C Seventh”)

F A C Eb (F7)

G B D F (G7)

(Note: You can play these chords on your right and play the root bass notes (”C,” “F,” or “G”) on your left if you don’t have a bass player).

But since James has a bass player, he’s playing tritones in the left hand.

Tritones are interesting little fellas.

They are diminished fifth intervals. I don’t have enough time to really delve into that part of it but just think of them as 6 half steps apart.

So if you wanted to form a tritone based on C, you would start on C and count 6 half steps up.

C to Db is 1 half step
Db to D is another half step
D to Eb is another half step
Eb to E is another half step
E to F is another half step
F to Gb is the last half step.

That makes 6 (for my folks new to counting in “half steps”).

Here are all the tritones written all in flats for simplicity’s sake:

C + Gb
Db + G
D + Ab
Eb + A
E + Bb
F + B

Now watch what’s going to happen…

Here are the remaining 6 tritones

Gb + C
G + Db
Ab + D
A + Eb
Bb + E
B + F

Basically the second half of the tritone list is just like the first but they’re inverted. Which means instead of C+Gb, now it’s Gb+C.

This makes tritones very versatile. You only need to know 6 and you can flip them to get the other 6.

So let’s recall our 3 magic chords for this 12-bar blues progression:

C E G Bb (C7)

F A C Eb (F7)

G B D F (G7)

Because they are seventh chords, they inherently carry a TRITONE. Yup, that’s true. So if you can figure out what tritones are used in these three chords, then you don’t have to play the full chord. You can abbreviate these chords with their tritone “shortcuts.”

How’s 4 notes down to 2 for ya? Easier to play right? Definitely! But it gets better… I’ll talk about the “better” part later.

So did you find the tritone in each of those chords???

You should have gotten:

E+Bb for the C7

A+Eb for the F7

B+F for the G7

SHORTCUT: Basically the 3rd and lowered 7th tone of the chord (E is the third in C major and Bb is the lowered seventh in C major) will create your tritone.

Now for the “better” part…

What’s cool about tritones is that when you’re moving in fourths (as in the case of a C7 going to an F7), they are extremely easy to play.

Notice this:

Tritone for C7 = E+Bb
Tritone for F7 = A+Eb

Can one of these tritones be “flipped” to their other pair to make this easier to play?

Abzzzzoooooooolutelyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!

You could do this two ways.

1) Change the C7 tritone
2) Or change the F7 tritone

So you could either go from E+Bb (which substitutes for C7 chord) to Eb+A (which substitutes for F7 chord)… which means all you have to do is lower each finger ONE note… that’s it! ONE NOTE!

Or you can change the first chord:

Bb+E to A+Eb

Your call! Switch em’ up here and there.

Now, what would you use for the G7 tritone if you were currently on the “E+Bb” tritone?

Which G7 tritone is closer?

F+B or B+F

“Give me the F+B tritone for $100 Alex!”

So I hope through this post that I not only introduced you to the 12-bar blues pattern but I’ve also shown you the power and convenience of tritones and how you can “flip” them to make it easier for your left hand to flow from chord to chord.

If you’re playing tritones correctly and using the right chord for the right moment, you should never have to slide more than a few notes. Tritones should be right next to each other. After all, there’s only 6 of them and the other flipped 6 use the same notes as the first.

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See ya next time!

Popularity: 21% [?]

Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about this so-called gospel musicians’ “secret.”

In fact, this “secret” is suppose to be the ONE thing that connects every “big name” gospel musician together.

They all know what it is. Heck, they’ve even learned how to manipulate it so much that it can literally evoke any kind of emotion when used properly.

And what it all boils down to is their ability to find unique ways to use this secret in musical situations at church that most gospel musicians can’t begin to fathom.

Sadly, the big-time musicians want to keep this gospel “secret” to themselves (and I’m sure you probably know why by now)…

Why? Because the secret I’m about to reveal to you (that no one else wants to share) combined with a few more techniques, produces the hottest sound to ever hit contemporary gospel music… PERIOD.

And to be quite honest, it hasn’t always been accepted by the church. Several hundred years ago, its sound would have been classified as the “devil’s music.”

Today, it is the most commonly used “secret” in contemporary worship music.

Warning: Most gospel musicians think they know how to use this secret but they’ve only employed a fraction of its true power.

But because I know you’re serious about your playing, I want to give you a sneak peak of this secret for *f*r*e*e*.

And if you’re really committed to your growth like I think you are, you will take this secret and apply it to every aspect of your playing. Your worship services depend on it.

(Just wait… when your church hears how you’ve manipulated this “secret” to transform your playing, they won’t believe it’s the same person on the keys).

I’ve shared this secret in depth with a few of my closest students and each and every one of them were blown away by these practical techniques. Not just because these techniques instantly expanded their playing but because they were so easy to incorporate, yet only the big-time musicians use them in such ways.

Listen, I don’t know how long these video clips will be up so if I were you, I’d hurry to watch all 8 of them now. You’ll also want to get on the notification list to be contacted when more information is available.

Hurry to ==> http://www.hearandplay.com/thesecret

If you want to find out what this “secret” is, rush to the link below:

http://www.hearandplay.com/thesecret

(You won’t be sorry).

P.S. - The secret is called the “_________.” If you think you know the true power of the ________, think again! True _________ mastery awaits you.

Get the secret at: http://www.hearandplay.com/thesecret

Popularity: 12% [?]