Can someone explain this video to me ....

[ML94]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOX51KneYEA

I understand the tri-tone substitution part. It's the secondary relationships anthony is explaining, being cut out it dosen't make sense to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bpKfdYvuYE

Here again, he says something about having secondary relationship ...

[Hector]

He's talking about secondary dominants - dominant chords that aren't necessarily diatonic to the key you're in. For example, iii VI ii V I in C:

E-7 A7 D-7 G7 Cmaj7

That A7 there is a secondary dominant (in our key of C the chord it should be is A-7). It has a C# in rather than plain old C. It provides a sense of motion towards the ii chord. You can think of it in all sorts of ways - basically, it very temporarily, sets up a V-I resolution in the key of D minor. Secondary dominants allow all sorts of interesting note choices: you could play D harmonic or melodic minor over that A7 (I love the harmonic minor for the juicy Bb it brings to the party), or you could play A H/W diminished, or A altered. You could even do a D minor blues scale or pentatonic thing. Season to taste

You can temporarily tonicise any chord in a diatonic progression by treating it as the I chord of it's own key and preceding it by it's own V chord (where that V chord is not diatonic to the current key, and is therefore a secondary dominant). Staying in C major, you could have a D7, which would be tonicising the G7 chord. You could have E7, which tonicises A-7 etc.

The shorthand notation for these is to put that it is a V chord followed by the diatonic chord it is tonicising. E.g. a iii VI ii V I could be more accurately rewritten in roman numeral analysis as iii V/ii ii V I.

Anthony is also saying that you can tritone sub any of those secondary dominants, e.g.

E-7 A7 D-7 G7 Cmaj7 ----------> E-7 Eb7 D-7 G7 Cmaj7 --------------> E-7 Eb7 D-7 Db7 Cmaj7


Hope that's helpful!

[ambient]

The video keeps stopping for me, and I can't quite make out everything that's on the board behind him.

I'm guessing though that if you look at the chords along the top, and what he's written underneath. EbMaj7 is the 1 chord of Eb, it's also the IVMaj chord of Bb. Dm7 is the IIm chord of C, the IIIm chord of Bb and the VIm chord of F. Gm7 is the IIm of F, the IIIm of Eb and relative minor of Bb. Cm7 is the IIm of Bb and the IIIm of Ab.

Edited March 15, 2014 by ambient

[ML94]

[quote name='Hector' timestamp='1394896853' post='2396434']
He's talking about secondary dominants - dominant chords that aren't necessarily diatonic to the key you're in. For example, iii VI ii V I in C:

E-7 A7 D-7 G7 Cmaj7

That A7 there is a secondary dominant (in our key of C the chord it should be is A-7). It has a C# in rather than plain old C. It provides a sense of motion towards the ii chord. You can think of it in all sorts of ways - basically, it very temporarily, sets up a V-I resolution in the key of D minor. Secondary dominants allow all sorts of interesting note choices: you could play D harmonic or melodic minor over that A7 (I love the harmonic minor for the juicy Bb it brings to the party), or you could play A H/W diminished, or A altered. You could even do a D minor blues scale or pentatonic thing. Season to taste

You can temporarily tonicise any chord in a diatonic progression by treating it as the I chord of it's own key and preceding it by it's own V chord (where that V chord is not diatonic to the current key, and is therefore a secondary dominant). Staying in C major, you could have a D7, which would be tonicising the G7 chord. You could have E7, which tonicises A-7 etc.

The shorthand notation for these is to put that it is a V chord followed by the diatonic chord it is tonicising. E.g. a iii VI ii V I could be more accurately rewritten in roman numeral analysis as iii V/ii ii V I.

Anthony is also saying that you can tritone sub any of those secondary dominants, e.g.

E-7 A7 D-7 G7 Cmaj7 ----------> E-7 Eb7 D-7 G7 Cmaj7 --------------> E-7 Eb7 D-7 Db7 Cmaj7


Hope that's helpful!
[/quote]

That's exactly what I was looking for and now leads me onto the next question.

Is this a compositional technique or can you as a player enforce these qualities on normal (Diatonic) chord progressions? Or am i looking at a lot of clashing ...

[Hector]

In short, yes and yes!

It's a great compositional technique, it adds a lovely sense of motion to chord progressions. As an improvisor, you should be looking to highlight these movements, and these juicy non-diatonic notes that take you through the changes. The cool thing is that secondary dominants will only have one note that isn't in your current key, so you can highlight it to capture that forward moving sound. Let's stay in C major:

C7 = Bb
D7 = F#
E7 = G#
F7 = Eb (note that this is a special case, because it's resolving to Bb, which isn't diatonic to C)
A7 = C#
B7 = D#

These notes are essential to capturing the sound of the secondary dominant movement. You can add other tensions as and when you want (like I was writing about using different scale options over A7 in the key of C). The best way to get used to the basic sound is play those notes over the progression, and practise chord-tone soloing over progressions with secondary dominants in. You want to play movement through the harmony

Related to what Ambient was saying, some of these chords can serve to modulate you to another key more permanently. You could modulate from C to D via E-7 A7 - which is either a iii V/ii in C, or a ii V in D.... Then it's really a question of a more permanent stay in D!

As an improvisor, you can use these sounds to help guide you through progressions even when they're not specified by the chords. When you're playing a line and you want to set up a note as a target, playing a line with a semitone below it will guide the listener towards it e.g. you could have a D# in a line which you're resolving to E over a C major chord! I really like little melodic cells of diatonic note above and lower chromatic neighbor below (in any order) to target a specific note. But in that case at that fine a scale I'm thinking more chromatic enclosure than secondary dominants. You could get secondary dominants more fully in your lines by superimposing them over the existing harmony as well.

[ML94]

That's Brill! Thanks a lot !

[JuliusGroove]

[quote name='Hector' timestamp='1394900581' post='2396503'] When you're playing a line and you want to set up a note as a target, playing a line with a semitone below it will guide the listener towards it e.g. you could have a D# in a line which you're resolving to E over a C major chord! [/quote]

Not sure I understand this bit. Where did the D# come from in relation to the secondary dominants?

I understand it's chromatically leading to the E.. Is it in relation to the B7 as the D# is the altered note for it to become a dominant?

Or have I completely missed it..

Edited March 17, 2014 by JuliusGroove

[Hector]

I guess you could see D# as a non-diatonic note that sort of implies a B7 chord - it has the sense of motion towards the target note. But I did then go on to say that I don't think it's useful to think of lines like that in terms of secondary dominants (unless you're gonna go the whole hog and superimpose B7 over the existing harmony). It's better to think of that kind of thing as bebop-style chromatic enclosure of a target chord tone.

It'd be a bit more applicable if we were targeting the root note of a chord e.g. playing D Eb B D C over a C-7 chord - you could think that the B was implying some kind of G7 sound I suppose.

Edited March 17, 2014 by Hector

[JuliusGroove]

Okay, so the D# was just a chromatic note to lead towards the E? (No more stupid questions I SWEAR!)

[Hector]

The only stupid thing is not asking questions

Yeah, it's leading to an E. Part of constructing good lines that clearly define the harmony is making the notes you want land on strong beats (typically chord tones, or some of the more palatable upper extensions unless you want to imply other harmony). One way to do that is via chromaticism, adding in extra notes to make sure the note you want to emphasise lands on a strong beat.

[JuliusGroove]

[quote name='Hector' timestamp='1395078270' post='2398398']
One way to do that is via chromaticism, adding in extra notes to make sure the note you want to emphasise lands on a strong beat.
[/quote]

OOOOH I see... So is that kinda linked to why Bebop scales have the additional chromatic note so that you can still land on the strong beat?

[Hector]

Yeah exactly that JG my man.

If you play a straight dominant scale from the root down, starting on beat 1 of a bar notes that land on strong beats are R 13 11 9. Not exactly an over-abundance of chord tones there! But if you add in the natural 7 to play a mixolydian bebop scale the notes that land on strong beats are R b7 5 3. The bebop version makes the chord tones land on strong beats, and the line conveys the sense of the harmony.

If you look at some solos by great bebop musicians, you'll see that they have chord tones landing on strong beats a lot of the time. They use different little patterns to make this happen though, and which patterns exactly are a part of the player's personality. You don't have to play straight bebop scales all the time: you can use a large amount of chromaticism, and change directions as much as you want so long as you hit those chord tones.

Two books that really crystallised my thinking on this were "Forward Motion" by Hal Galper and "How To Play Bebop" by David Baker (vol1 is a good start, but they're all valuable). Both very valuable reading for getting this stuff together.

Edited March 17, 2014 by Hector

[JuliusGroove]

Awesome! One day I'll venture into Bebop...

[ML94]

I'd love to play some of the lines Dizzy plays ....