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Why 13th Chords

jtauber.com

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Re: Why 13th Chords

#61

Post by gtani »

davesims wrote: post #60
scrozier wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jgrubb, as a 53-year-old musician/programmer/entrepreneur (formally trained [in parallel, mostly] in the first two), may I posit that you're not a late-comer to anything yet!

A big ditto from me at 42 (programmer/musician)

Not a musician, but 14 years of lessons in piano, woodwinds and percussion as a kid, and recently acquired keyboards, guitars and clarinet.

Recently I started coding in a language i was sort of afraid of, haskell, and playing an instrument I was afraid of, fretless bass, at the same time. I had a "Dammit, go somewhere, do something" moment.

Which reminds me that i was going to google for how string, brass and woodwind players aren't locked into equal temperament, they can intonate as they like.

Re: Why 13th Chords

#62

Post by drumdance »

davesims wrote: post #60
scrozier wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jgrubb, as a 53-year-old musician/programmer/entrepreneur (formally trained [in parallel, mostly] in the first two), may I posit that you're not a late-comer to anything yet!

A big ditto from me at 42 (programmer/musician)

43 yo here. Recently I've been using Garageband to learn guitar. It's fantastic. My first serious use of computers with music even though I've been a programmer for almost 20 years.

Re: Why 13th Chords

#63

Post by robocop »

jtauber wrote: post #58
robocop wrote: post #50

Sorry to be pedantic, but a 9th chord actually has a 9th and a _flat_ 7th. For example C9 has the notes C-E-G-Bb-D. 9th chords are part of the dominant group, not the major group. A chord with a 9th and a 7th is a _major_ 9th. For example, the chord C-E-G-B-D is Cmaj9 (sometimes written C triangle 9).

Well, I'm assuming by convention that the 7th is flattened, as the notation "C7" does.

I think the convention for chord notation is different to the convention for scale degrees. The 7th note in C major is B, but a C7 has a Bb.

Re: Why 13th Chords

#64

Post by sudoscience »

dextorious wrote: post #6
mml wrote: post #2

Well, that pretty much explains why people have a hard time "getting" music theory. Gibberish+Goobeltygooksus7

Actually it's a perfectly succinct and easy notation. Not many musicians have a "hard time" getting it, except for those that never cared to study it. In fact, in the history of jazz piss poor black kids that never went to school managed to master music theory just fine. And an enormous amount of people all around the world. The particular example you mention (chord naming) has something like 1/100 the difficulty of…

I disagree. I was a professional musician at one time and regular expressions are far easier than music theory, in my opinion.

Re: Why 13th Chords

#65

Post by harrylove »

chrisguitarguy wrote: post #49
scrozier wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, dextorious. Something of a semantic issue. Maybe we should say, "serious" music or "concert music" or some such. I really don't like any of the terms. In any case, your point is well taken. It would be interesting to trace the parallel development of harmony in "serious" music and jazz. (Which, of course, someone has done.)

I always liked the term "art music" to refer to the entire classical music genre. "Classical" implies a certain period to me.

The problem with terms like these is the music at the boundaries. There's pop and jazz music that sound more like art than some concert music. There's art music that will never see the inside of a concert hall. What about interactive computer music? Is it art? Is it a game? Is it theater? Is it improv? What about music that arises out of dance movement? Is it dance music?

What's "serious"? What's a "composer"? What's "art"? What's "sound"? And just like any jargon, it depends on the audience with which you're communicating. The more you try to standardize a definition, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

Re: Why 13th Chords

#66

Post by tmroyal »

mirkules wrote: post #22

"gives the chord a very different direction it wants to go" I struggle with this every time I write songs. How exactly do you know which direction you should go, and how to transition from verse to chorus (i.e. how to pick good transition chords/notes). Currently, I do this by ear, whatever sounds good, but I know there is a better way.

"Music was born free; and to win freedom is its destiny." - Ferruccio Busoni

Re: Why 13th Chords

#67

Post by gruseom »

dextorious wrote: post #41
gruseom wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more diverse than that. Some do end up learning theory but many great musicians don't. Here's a delightful example: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/1090345--video-...

"""Some do end up learning theory but many great musicians don't.""" We're talking about music theory in genres where it is important, i.e where the music is involved and advanced. Three minute fifties rock-n-roll tunes is not where this happens. Little Richards is great, but not in the musically advanced way Charles Mingus, Miles Davies, etc are great. He's great for the raw fun/energy/danceability impact of his mus…

You're making a huge mistake when you say that. This sort of snobbishness is really bad for art. Great art is always connected to the lowly and the popular. Disdain for that which is not "advanced", imagining barriers between high and low, is associated with nothing so much as creative exhaustion. It's the mentality not of the artist but of the critic, and the second-rate critic at that.

It's ironic that you would pick a couple of jazz musicians to illustrate this, since for most of its formative history jazz was derided as a vulgar form. Only in later stages was it championed by the priests of "advancedness". This is a sign of decadence. When the Davises and Minguses appear, that is the late-blooming of a genre, and by the time the scholars move in, the muses for the most part have moved on. (Which is not at all to say that Davis and Mingus aren't great artists.)

Re: Why 13th Chords

#68

Post by gruseom »

harrylove wrote: post #65
chrisguitarguy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always liked the term "art music" to refer to the entire classical music genre. "Classical" implies a certain period to me.

The problem with terms like these is the music at the boundaries. There's pop and jazz music that sound more like art than some concert music. There's art music that will never see the inside of a concert hall. What about interactive computer music? Is it art? Is it a game? Is it theater? Is it improv? What about music that arises out of dance movement? Is it dance music? What's "serious"? What's a "composer"? What's…

Yes. It's utterly pointless to set these distinctions. Iggy and the Stooges and the Ramones were disciplined conceptual artists, yet they were part of a movement that spelled stupid "stoopid". The beautiful thing about real art, the kind that gets remembered as great art later, is that it is always ahead of the theoretical game.

A famous example is Shakespeare, who was vulgar until the German Romantics discovered him as classic.

Re: Why 13th Chords

#69

Post by the_cat_kittles »

dextorious wrote: post #42
scrozier wrote: post #27

Grew up playing classical and pop music, basically 3-4 chords (maj, min, 7th, etc). Went to the best jazz school in the world (U of North Texas) and woke up to jazz...an order of magnitude more harmonically complex than classical. Will spend the rest of my life learning to play jazz. Why is this on HN? Because there is a giant overlap between hackers and musicians. For those of you interested, but confused, go to a m…

"""an order of magnitude more harmonically complex than classical. """ Depends on the classical. There's classical stuff that's harmonically miles beyond jazz music. Contemporary classical, that is.

mmm, I wouldn't be so sure. Both can be about as "out" as possible, or about as "complex" as possible. I would say that, in general, contemporary jazz musicians have thought about harmony about as much as contemporary classical composers. I mean, they focus on different aspects of harmony, but I wouldn't claim that one school is miles beyond another. Its almost a silly comparison, anyway.

Re: Why 13th Chords

#70

Post by owensmartin »

I'd like to tack on another key feature to these 13th chords (no pun intended)-- and that is of spreading out the voicing across the instrument's (usually piano's) range.

There's a sort of rule of thumb in jazz that the only interval that sounds genuinely BAD is the flat 9. Try it on your piano right now (say, C and C# an octave up). Notice that a similar interval, the major 7 (C and B) sounds pretty, even though the notes are kinda clashing because they're so close. But on the other hand the flat 9 sounds GREAT if you voice it right. To see this, hit a low C, then E, B-flat, and D-flat. Similarly this chord works with all the other color tones: 9s, 11s, 13s.

I think ultimately what makes jazz piano truly musical is when the musician has spent a lot of time trying out different voicings, spreading them out or crunching them in, and listened to each one to see which sounds the best.

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