Why Is the Dominant 7th Such A Jazzy Chord?

                Out of all the seventh chords, the dominant seventh is the most "jazzy."  I say this because it is the most versatile and colorful jazz chord.  Why it this possible?  What do I even mean by versatile and colorful?  Let me explain.

                First of all, the key to the "jazziness" of the dominant seventh chord is found in the shell of the chord.  A shell is simple (striped down) voicing that uses only the key components of the chord.  For a piano player (playing a rootless voicing) this is the 3rd and 7th of the chord.  These two intervals alone can define a chord as a dominant seventh. 

                The interesting part here is that the interval between the 3rd and 7th of a dominant seventh chord is a tritone.  A tritone is the exact bisect of an octave, so it is a symmetrical and versatile interval.  This quality of the chord allows you to apply the greatest amount of alterations to the upper extensions (in comparison to other seventh chords).  Being able to use flat 13ths, flat 9ths, 11ths, natural 13ths and so on; provides a wide color palate for a musician to paint with. 

                 Another interesting resulting from the 3rd and 7th of a dominant seventh chord is tritone substitution.  The 3rd and 7th of one dominant seventh chord are the same pitches at the 7th and 3rd of dominant seventh that is a tritone away.  Wow, that sentence was confusing.  Let me break it down.  For example, in a G dominant seventh chord B is the 3rd and F is the 7th.  The chord that is a tritone (above or below) G is Db (or C#).  In a Db dominant seventh chord F is the 3rd and B (or Cb) is the 7th.  The two chord share the same shell pitches.  This makes them interchangeable.  You can use a Db dominant seventh chord in places that normally call for a G dominant seventh chord.  This adds to the versatility and variety of uses available in dominant seventh harmony.

Holding On and Letting Go

               Skillful musical performance requires a mastery of technique.  Hours of regular practice is required in order to obtain this technical skill.  However, the main element of a truly effective musical performance is the skillful conveyance of emotion.  Listening to music is an esthetic experience, and the performer must do their best to enhance the listener’s experience. 

                For this reason classically trained musicians are often criticized by today’s pop culture as being too “technical.”  All of that training can cause them to perform with their head instead of their heart.  Each note is musically calculated, but the meaning and emotion behind the music is lost. 

                In the same respect, untrained musicians can also experience performance issues.  Their lack of training can limit the level of skill they can achieve within their playing or singing.  A singer may not be able to achieve the notes, runs or intonation that his heart wants to express due to a lack of training.  An instrumentalist may hit limits to the speed and dexterity he can achieve, regardless of the amount of time he spends practicing, due to poor technique. 

                Truly talented musicians master the balance of holding on to their technique and training while letting go of their technical thought process and freely expressing the emotion of the music.  This balance comes through the mastery of two stages of training.  First, we must truly master the techniques that we are studying.  When a technique is truly mastered, it becomes effortless and automatic.  Therefore, I believe that the criticism of “technical” musicians is not a result of too much technique, but instead a result of lack of mastery of the technique.  If the mastery of the skill requires enough thought to dominate our expression then the skill has not actually been mastered.

                The second stage is mastery of emotion.  A person can understand the way a particular emotion feels, but have trouble outwardly expressing it.  Emotions tend to be wild and uncontrollable.  Over and/or under expression can easily occur during a musical performance.  This is enhanced by our skewed perspective of our own expression.  Musicians (especially singers and wind players) have a much closer perspective to their tone production than the audience.  The sound is resonating on, or even in their body, so what they hear can be drastically different from the tone that the listener hears.  In addition, movement and visual expression can also feel different from the actual outward appearance. 

               To master the art of outward expression, a musician must understand what the correct visual and tonal expression feels like (from his perspective).  We need to practice this in the same way that we practice musical technique.  Performing in front of a mirror or video recording device can help to gain perspective.  Repeated performance and observation will eventually yield the desired results.  When these results become effortless and automatic we have truly mastered the ability to express emotion.  Combining this mastery with the mastery of musical technique will create an amazing musical performance.

Playing Music is 20% Mental and 80% Physical

                Have you ever heard the expression, "... is 20% physical and 80% mental" from a coach or trainer.  It is true that your mind (emotions, doubts, insecurities) has the power to enhance or negate the training and preparation you have accumulated for a given task.  However, I am not referring to that definition of mental in my title.   I am referring to the difference between having an intellectual knowledge of something versus having the physical ability to be able to perform it. 

                Traditional grade school in the USA consists mostly of intellectual activities.  Within the study of academic subjects, students strive to achieve a mental understanding of the material.  They prove their mastery of the material by being able to answer academic questions about the given subject.   This reality is the cause of frustration for many of my academically bright public school students while studying the subject of instrumental music. 

                They approach the study of instrumental music as if it were a purely academic subject.  They memorize the correct answer to questions like "How many beats is a half note held for?" and "What does the symbol P mean?"  However, when their music contains a half note they do not hold it out for a full two beat, and when it contains the symbol P they do not play softly.  Why is that? 

                The discord between their mental understanding of music and their application of that knowledge in musical performance is a result of their lack of treatment of instrumental music as a physical activity.  I use illustrations from physical education class to try to relay this point to my students.  For example, I could explain to them the proper way to shoot a basketball.  They could understand every point about this technique and still have difficulty actually making a shot.  The only way to truly master the skill is to physically practice it repeatedly.  Their muscles need to feel the action while they observe the results of their technique.  Then they can make adjustments based on the observed results until they finally master the skill.

                Instrumental performance is a unique subject in that it is both academic and physical.  There are many deep concepts to be studied within the field of music.  Possessing an understanding of these concepts aids tremendously in one's ability to perform music.  However, the leaning of our public school system toward purely academic studies causes many students to lack the ability to apply knowledge to physical performance.  In addition, it is possible to perform a piece of music correctly through rote repetition with little understanding of the musical concepts that piece contains.  It is impossible to perform a piece of music, however, without repetitious and effective practice.

                This is why I say that playing music is 20% mental and 80% physical.  In order to achieve a level of mastery within a musical performance, one must achieve a level of mastery of the physical activities associated with that performance.  Wind players and singers need to know how to manipulate the air they supply to their instrument so that they can produce a beautiful and consistent tone regardless of range of pitch or dynamic level (or vowel/consonant being pronounced in the case of singers).  String players need to be familiar with the proper feel of the bow as it moves across the string with excellent technique.  Piano players need a physical awareness of the distance between keys and the exact force and technique needed to express various dynamics and emotions.  These, and many other performance skills, can only be achieved through habitual practice. 

                There are those who think about music and those who play music.  No matter how much knowledge you obtain about music, the only way to truly perform it skillfully is to maintain a regular practice routine.  The more time one spends physically playing music on his instrument, the better he will become at  playing music.  That is why I say, "Playing music is 20% mental and 80% physical."

Need For Speed

There are two secrets to developing speed in your playing.  The first seems to be in direct opposition to the goal.  In order to be able to play fast you must first play slow.  How could playing slow lead to playing fast.  This is kind of connected to my music blog entry entitled “We Perform What We Practice” (http://www.raymelograne.com/3/feed). 

Hesitations are often the result of poor data entry in the early stages of practice.  When you are first practicing a piece of music you are entering data about the pitches, rhythms, dynamics, articulation and other musical elements into your brain (and muscle memory).  If this initial practice is conducted at too fast of a tempo, incorrect data will be entered.  Even if you play everything correctly, it may not feel like a solid or grounded performance.  Incorrect musical elements and/or uncertainty will lodge itself into your memory.  In future performance, this poor data will rise up in your mind and be in conflict with what your eyes are reading from the sheet music (or what you are hearing from the recording). 

In this early (data entry) stage of learning, you need to practice at a tempo that allows for a stable and accurate performance of the music.  You also may need to break the piece into more digestible musical sections (and then reconstruct it as you progress).  Once this stable and accurate data is entered into your mind, repetition will solidify it.  Gradually, you will be able to increase the tempo until you reach the actual performance speed. 

The other secret is training in the specific dexterity obstacles on your instrument.  Every instrument had certain aspects to their design that hinder fluid playing.  For instance, the saxophone contains palm keys, side keys and pinky keys that are clumsily to manipulate.  Poor hand technique (high fingers and large shifts in hand position) on add to this issue.  Many students avoid these types of issues as they arise in practice sessions.  However, there are many exercises and studies that have been composed to specifically target these design issues.  The Universal Method for Saxophone, by Paul DeVille, contains a number of “mechanisms” exercises for example. 

Regardless of your instrument, these dexterity obstacles create an imaginary ceiling on the limit of speed you are able to achieve.  Taking the time to seek out these exercises and study them with the proper technique is the only way to raise the ceiling.  While studying, you should apply the slow first method mentioned in the first section of this blog entry.  When in doubt concerning the proper technique, you should research and seek the advice of experts.  With today’s internet access the answers to most questions are just a few clicks away. 

The proper combination of these two secrets within you practice will allow you to reach levels of playing that you previously thought unattainable.  The only other ingredients necessary are time and patients.  Becoming a great musician is not easy, but it is very rewarding.    

In Music, Half Of Seven Is…?

Historically, music theory has been divided into two major groups, Eastern and Western.  I don’t mean Country Western.  The term refers to the music theory that came from Western Europe as opposed to Eastern Europe and Asia.  One of the main differences is that Western music is composed of scales/key signatures that contain seven notes.  The seven letters of the musical alphabet are A, B, C, D, E, F and G.  Each one can be sharped, flatted or remain natural.  However, a particular key signature will consist of only one type of each letter which results in a scale of seven pitches. 

The existence of the seven pitch scale causes me to raise the question, “How does one musically divide seven in half?”  Music has many mathematical components, and this one creates an interesting occurrence within the element of harmony.  There is no interval (harmonic distance) between the major third and the perfect fourth, so there is no musical way to represent the interval of three and a half. 

Why is the bisect point of the musical alphabet even important?  This distance can be used as the building block for chords.  Since an interval of 3.5 does not exist in Western Music we are forced to build harmonies by stacking either thirds or fourths.   In the popular forms of modern day music this creates two different styles/characters of harmony. 

Trishal harmony (built off of thirds) has a more straight and tight sound.  All simple triads (three note chords) are built from the first, third and fifth scale degrees.  These types of chords create the characteristic sound of most rock and pop music.  If you invert the order of the pitches, you have a triad that consists of one fourth and one third (a mixture of the two intervals).  However, when you are limited to these three pitches (1^st, 3^rd and 5^th) it is impossible to create a chord (in a close voicing) that consists of all fourths.  Even basic seventh chords (adding the 7^th as an additional pitch) cannot be voiced as pure stacks of fourths.    

Quartal harmony (built off of fourths) has a more lose and opened sound.  The only way to achieve pure quartal harmony is to build chords consisting of more pitches.  Seventh chords are also stacked in thirds within their root position.  The extra pitch does allow us to create additions combinations of thirds and fourths within the harmonic intervals.  As you add additional pitches to the harmony (color tones and upper extensions) you finally achieve the ability to construct cords built only of fourths. 

These seventh chords with additional pitches are characteristic of the sound of jazz, blues, gospel and r&b music.  So, it can be said that the more fourths are used to build the chords of a particular type of music the more the characteristic sound of that music leans towards jazz.  In addition, the more thirds are used the more the characteristic sound leans towards rock or pop.  I find it interesting that this inability to evenly split the seven note scale causes a split in modern musical styles.