Chord Extensions

Full Text

In music written after 1900, musicians started to explore how far they could stretch harmony. Most of that legacy lives today. There is a whole brand of theory that focuses on Jazz harmony, and while that is not what this lesson is about, it is important to acknowledge the role that Jazz, and in particular the role that musicians of color played on innovating harmony. This legacy lives on today in the work of a number of composers, but one of my favorites is Tania Leon. Tania was born in Havana Cuba and moved to the united states in the 60’s to study at New York University. Some of her accomplishments (which there are many include) helping found the Arthur Mitchell Dance theater in Harlem, as well as numerous prestigious awards. Her music often includes Cuban, Hispanic and Latin Jazz elements, as well as contemporary classical techniques.

Let’s listen to a short excerpt from her piece Ethos for String Quartet and Piano. Listen to see if you hear some of these influences [Listen to this]

This excerpt incorporates mostly non-functional harmony, meaning it does not use the phrase model typical in tonal music. One of the essential functions of the harmony is the inclusion of upper tertial extensions. Tertian harmony is the inclusion of stacked 3rd (so a major triad is a tertian chord) [play C-E-G]. Most classical music only include up to the 7th [ADD B], but it is quite common in more recent music to include chords up to the 13th [PLAY C-E-G-B-D-F-E]

Well you probably noticed in the Leon that there are a number of chords being used here that do not fit into a specific key. So for instance the first chord starts on an Ab Major 7th chord [Play chord 1, without the Gb]. Now add the Gb. Leon has spelled it as a Gb mostly likely so it reads like a diminished triad in the upper voices against a Major7th chord in the root and for the violinist sake (don’t forget that enharmonic typically mean something different in post-tonal repertoire) , but lets read it as an F#. For this we label it Ab-Major7th (#13). Now lets look at the next one. 

Notice here that there is a Perfect 5th in the lower voices with A in the bass, as well as a Db which can be reinterpreted as a C#, so it is based around a Major triad, but what about this Eb and this Gb. Well in this instance if we were to interpreted this passage as in Eb this would be incredibly complicated, so in this instance it makes more sense to think of this as having no key, so in the key of A-major, Eb can be reinterpreted as D# which would be the #11, while the Gb can be reinterpreted as F# which Is the 13th. So our label would be A-major, (#11, 13)

Lets do one more. C, A and E are present which makes me think It might be related to A minor in some sort of inversion. The only note that helps us clarify this is a Gb which helps to confirm this, and if you look at the previous chord the Gb is held over (albiet another voice) which makes me think this is a revoicing but with A minor instead of major. The only different is that it is missing the #11, so this can be read as A-minor (#13) over C.  

These examples were just one way of analyzing this piece, sometimes this theory is less (standardized) than others, the important thing here is that you just understand the role that these extended notes have on the harmony and you are good!

PREVIOUS LESSON - NEXT LESSON

Sources

https://www.tanialeon.com

León, Tania. Ethos. New York: IROKO Music, 2014 (NOTE: This piece is not Public Domain, so if I were to publish this I would need to get rights from Leon)