Gotta be that min7 flat 5 off the 4. It's melty! Edit: I'm not particularly learned, but I did watch a video years ago about that chord's use in "All I want for Christmas."
All music education (or honestly education in general) would be much easier if always accompanied with neat, coherent diagrams. (In this case, a piano roll + a circle of 5ths + a music staff would be the perfect combo imho) This is my favourite thing about the burgeoning group of educational RU-vidrs appearing lately. It's the perfect format for some super helpful visuals! Charles is definitely very good at it, I hope he expands on it even more in future! 👌✨
I'd love to see a breakdown between jazz and blues! Are there any chord progressions that are inherently blues? What are the similarities? Where did it originate? Where do you draw the line between the two? Really enjoy your breakdowns, man! Keep them coming!
@@caleblarsen5490 the blues is a very mutable form, you can do so much with it beyond that, however, that is a very basic blues progression and is the gist of the blues
To add to what others have said, blues focuses a lot on dominant chords, with IV7->I7 being the often most focused on resolution. Using dissonant tones is very common, one of the most notable being the flat 9 or minor 3rd over a dominant seventh chord
I usually understand about 20% of your videos, but I always enjoy watching. 😄 Thank you for going a little more basic with this one though, super helpful!
One of my favorite things that utilizes jazz chords, is when jazz chords are used in EDM, EDM sounds a lot more emotional to me when jazz chords are implemented, especially in genres like future bass or melodic dubstep
@@patrichistefan6189 i suppose that makes sense, but i was talking about both. jazz chords, with both dissonant and consonant notes, sound very "sloppy", almost like someone talking in a slurred voice. it's a bit hard to describe, but even straight-ahead 4/4 sounds that way if i were to use more complex chords (maj7#11, m6/9, 7#5, dim7) m7 chords don't sound jazzy to me either, it's once you start adding more extensions that the "jazz" flavor starts to pop out at me the more complex chords with as many unstable intervals as consonant ones sound very lopsided and drunken. maj7 has a wistful, breezy sound to it
Nice! The way you play (especially your left hand in the dissonance section) reminds me very much of Vince Guaraldi. I love hearing about these things, and you make them interesting, even though I already know them.
Love your videos so much man seriously. When I dont have time to play or practice I just let your videos be the bit of music learning for the day. My brain is grateful for your lovely insight man!
This really helped me understand what it means for a chord to be jazzy. Thank you for informing us, I would’ve never known otherwise, for real! Also, just as a side note, you should listen to some of Bill Wurtz new music compositions. They really are something else, and I would be surprised if you didn’t go crazy over them.
Awesome video! Could you do a similar type of video explaining what makes chords sound "funky" or what is going on with those gospel and neo-soul chords?
Late 19th 20th century classical composers used plenty of upper extensions and harsh dissonance, earlier than they appeared in jazz. But what makes jazz harmony still sound so distinct, even though all the harmonies are also used in other music? I think the heavy reliance on the circle of 5ths and treating chords like maj7 as a consonance are a keys, but there must be more to it!
HI. I studied Classical Piano and I play "POP Chords" for tha last 30 years. I would like to do a course for Jazz. Which of your courses do you suggest me to start? Improvisation or Modes?
also re:the dominant 7th chord in the Axis progression, maybe another reason it sounds out of place is because it emphasizes tonal movement (the unstable tritone makes the expected resolution, both harmonicall and voiceleading-wise, more expected??). to me (a non-jazz listener) it vaguely seems like the kinds of jazz we associate with "jazzy chords" are more geared toward fifths-based, classical tonal movement whereas modern pop is more liminal. idk though
I’d be interested in seeing your reaction to the jazz piano scene in the movie Oscar. It’s called Finucci Boogie. It’s a nice little minute or so of duet boogie woogie. The movie is actually brilliant if you haven’t seen it.
Do you binge-play? What has been your longest streak of non-stop piano-playing you can remember? Do people complain? Also, do you remember what made you stop? Feeling tired? Bored?
6:30 - An ad counter in the lower right appeared and my brain was tricked by all the "JAZZ" flashing on the screen into misreading it as "jazz in 4..3...2..." :-D
Wait, what was this "popular pop music" progression? Based on root notes I found: 3 -> 1 -> 4 -> 1 -> 5 -> 2 and then transition 1 -> 2 to begin again? Surely hear it many times, doesn't sound less lovely because of that ;) - would love to play it! properly. Any details anyone?
It's kind of irritating to have a stereo sound which is switched right and left, so right ear is your high tones, but you see the high notes being played on the left xD
I like the secret chord that pleased the lord. Anyways, I like jazz chords because, the more jazz chords a song has, the more pizzazz it has. Whereas, songs without them make me spaz **jazz hands 🙌** **careless whisper intensifies**
I think that what makes that basic Dominant 7 chord feel so lame and out of place in jazz is that generally the dominant is supposed to have more crunch and dissonance than the other chords. The other chords work great in jazz as only simple 7-chords. But if the tonic is just as dissonant/crunchy/colorful as the dominant chord then that dominant just lost all of its dominant function. It's supposed to be tension and release, not tension followed by even more tension. That of course can be an effect all in itself, so as usual in music it's not that you aren't allowed to do whatever you want, but that the rules are about how you achieve certain effects/styles/sounds. Also because the dominant 7-chord is so ubiquitous in all kinds of styles it's already more familiar to our ears and thus feels more consonant than a major-7 chord. And a minor 7, as in a dominant chord, has less of a clash with the root than a major 7 does too. Basically in my experience you should most of the time use some kind of way to make the dominant chord more dissonant than all the others in the progression. Wether you add more upper extentions or alter more upper extensions or alter the 5 or do a tritone substitution or whatever.
Actually, I dont find that Jazz music sounds that dissonant. Sure a tritone is quite dissonant, but In context with other consonant relationships it feels much less dissonant, maybe even not dissonant at all. Maybe unresolved, but definitely beautiful.
A dominant chord is a major chord with a minor seventh, so tonic, major third, perfect fifth, minor seventh. That would be C, E, G, Bb for a C dominant, or G, B, D, F for a G dominant. Because of the trigone between the major third and minor seventh ( E-Bb is a tritone, B-F is a tritone), those chords sound somewhat dissonant and want to be resolved. Dominant as an adjective also refers to the fifth degree of a scale. (So since the C major scale is C D E F G A B, the G would be the dominant of C. Since a G major scale is G A B C D E F#, D would be the dominant of G). As you can guess, if we build the four-note chord of the dominant degree of a certain tonality, you get a dominant chord. In C, the dominant is G, if we use the notes of the C major scale to build a four-note G chord we have G, B, D, F = dominant chord. We would write this chord as G7, and pronounce it G seven or G dominant. As I said, dominant chords want to resolve. They generally want to resolve to the 1 of their scale, so G7 goes back to C, or D7 goes back to G. This movement, abbreviated as V7-I (dominant seventh chord of the fifth degree going to the first degree, written in Roman numerals) is pretty much the basis of all western music, from classical to jazz to pop and metal. It’s called the perfect resolution, going from V7 to I ( G7 to C, D7 to G, A7 to D, etc) So as you can see, dominant can designate a specific type of chord or a harmonic function. It gets messy because especially in classical music and jazz, we will use the term dominant to talk about the harmonic function (the harmony around the V) even that chord might be *more* than just dominant. We sometimes add a flat 9th to it, so in C a G dominant built this way would have the notes G, B, D, F, Ab, and would be written as G(b9) but could just be called G dominant as well. After all, it’s a dissonant chord, wanting a resolution, that’s based on the fifth degree (the dominant) of the scale. Generally only the fifth degree of a scale is dominant (thus the association between the chord type and the name of the harmonic function) but of course you can build a dominant chord anywhere you want. Blues generally uses the fourth (IV), fifth (V) and first (I) degrees (so in C major: F, G, C) but makes them all dominant, giving it the particular blues flavor. In C, you’d have F7 (notes: F, A, C, Eb), G7 (G, B, D, F) and C7 (C, E, G, Bb). Jazz loves making the second degree dominant and going from the second to the fifth to the first (this is what jazz folks call a II-V-I or 2-5-1). In C major, the would be D7 (even though a regular D chord in C major should be a D minor), G7, C. Classical music uses a lot of dominant chords built on any any scale degree, a lot of recent pop music loves going III7-vi-I (So in C major : E7 - A minor - C), etc. Hope this helps! Feel free to ask for clarifications.
Your video are really useful and helpful, but I think they would be even better if you wrote the chords you are playing (not necessarily always). It would be even more helpful for theory's beginners like me ;)
If you're interested there are some other really good channels on RU-vid that go into a lot of depth on chord voicings and show you the keyboard as you go. For jazz, I'd highly recommend Aimee Nolte's videos about jazz accompaniment. I watched a lot of them before taking theory at college, and they made that class super easy.
Great video! I've always struggled with knowing 'which upper extension work with which context'. As in, would 13 fit here? Perhaps the flat 13? Is it going according to certain rule? Or is it simply by picking it with my ear (as you have done for the 11 of the C chord, which didn't sound as good as the #11). By the way, I think a ceiling camera could be useful as we'll be able to see what you're playing (rather than it being upside down, when the camera is infront of you). Either way, as always, thanks for the upload! Love you bro
The upper extension needs a progression chord context. In simple manner, the individual notes should be near with the next notes of the next chord. Also, the concept of consonance priority is important, do not place two notes in semitones close to each other, maybe give them at least a different octave. Example: IVmaj7-V7-III7(#9)-vim7 the #9 of the III7 will sounds nice even it clashes with the 3rd note of the chord, but the 9th and 3rd note should be in different octave A chord like Imaj7(#11) sounds good because the 11th note is not too close with the 3rd note. Also this chord is suitable with Lydian scale which more "uplifting" rather than Ionian scale. I'm sorry for my bad explanations :')
When people improvise, do they know the exact chords they're playing or are they just going by feel? Like are they aware of all the upper extensions and are all of them purposeful or are they just like "winging it" and going by what "feels right" HAHA
What's funny about your channel is that every video is a crucial yet not-often-discussed lesson about some part of music theory and jazz, but It's all stuff that took me years to comprehend. You shoulda been born 5 years earlier or something! The internet is lucky you're here!
Please pleas please please please pleeeeeease Charles, check out Jazz Emu shorts. That sounded weird, allow me to explain. Jazz Emu is a really creative singer, kinda like Bill Wurtz and he has amazing pieces, and they're actually real funny. I guess it'll be a deligth for you to review.
This video finally helped me realize why I don't like jazz. It's the dissonance. I really don't like dissonant tones. Kind of a weird thing to comment on a video about jazz made by a jazz pianist, but there you go.
