From: leclaire@dxcern.cern.ch (Bruce Leclaire)
Newsgroups: rec.music.bluenote
Subject: Re: Hip Chord Voicings
Date: 15 Apr 92 03:42:19 GMT
Organization: CERN

In article <17570273@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM> mjs@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Marc Sabatella) writes:
>Sol writes:
>
>> Also I would interpret G7(b9b5) as being an altered chord because I don't
>> consider the HW diminished scale to contain a b5 -- it has a natural five!
>> How bout G7(#11b9)?
>
>Be careful here.  While the discussion here has made it abundantly clear that
>there are no standards for chord symbols, I do believe "most" people use 7b9b5
>to connote the HW diminshed scale.  Since the HW scale has 8 notes, there are
>bound to be ambiguities (ie, is C#/Db in G HW diminished a raised fourth or
>flatted fifth).  As opposed to the "lydian dominant" scale, which clearly has
>a raised fourth and not a flatted fifth.  Don't let everyone be on the wrong
>beat except you, Sol :-)
>

Marc's comment is slightly confusing to me. We all agree that we want a
chord to go with the HW diminished scale. Normally, as Sol has stated,
the "standard" chord symbol is G7b9. [Standard for me being the Real Book,
and Levine's Jazz Piano Book (which I thank Marc for recommending)].
The natural 5 is clearly there, and so it makes sense to call one of
the altered tones +11 (see page 76 of Levine). You get 8 notes from
this scale by having both the sharp and flat 9.

G7b9 = 1 b9 +9 3 +11 5 6 7  (and of course this scale also maps to
				Bb7b9, Db7b9, E7b9 chords).
     = G Ab A# B C# D E F


Why denote the chord as G7b9b5? Do you explicitly want the +11 included
in the voicing? If so, I prefer G7b9+11 notation as on page 78 of Levine.
Note that diminished scale harmony can be different from traditional harmony.
For example you can easily drop the 3 or the 7 and still have a nicely
voiced chord to play. As Levine says "Playing chords in diminished scale
harmony means playing in a "key" much more than playing a chord---the key
being a diminished scale that encompasses four different chords". In this
case the chord symbol just tells the piano player what scale, while helping
the bass player pick the root tone.

By the way, the classic song with lots and lots of b9's in it is "Stella
by Starlight". See measures 10-11 for a ii-V-I minor progression (i.e.
| E-7b5 A7b9 | D-7 | ) where the natural 5 of the A7b9 chord is featured
promeniently.

While I'm here I want to comment about the altered scale. This scale is
also commonly known as the diminished whole-tone scale, or less commonly
as the super-locrian {like the locrian its the 7th mode of the melodic
minor scale} or the Pomeroy scale {after Berklee prof}. Because of the
Real Book (and Levine), many people use the notation alt. So it is
dangerous, ie confusing, not to respect this usage. Feel free to invent
your own symbol if you must, but make it different from the symbol G7alt
since many people have a fixed idea what that means already.

B7alt = 1 b9 +9 3 +11 b13 7       [ note that the 5 is dropped
				     so its still a 7 note scale ]
      = B C D Eb F G A

Now, this chord symbol is not universally used. For example, Jamey Abersold
uses B7+9 in all his play-along stuff, as well as in the Parker Omnibook.
On the other hand, Dave Baker uses the symbol B7(#9#5) in alot of his
writings. But everyone agrees that they're building a chord from the
same scale.

Here again traditional harmony breaks down since the 3 and 7 can be
omitted from the chords. In the case of the alt chord B7alt you're
really just playing a key, its a chord from the melodic minor scale
(C melodic minor = C major scale with flat 3). I'm not making this up!
Play a chord with Eb G B D, notes from the C melodic minor scale.
It's missing the root. By only changing the root (which the bass player
is adding anyways, thus freeing the piano), you can get the following
six different chords.

       C   -->   C-maj          (minor-major)
       D   -->   Dsusb9
       Eb  -->   Ebmaj+5        (Lydian augmented)
       F   -->   F7+11          (Lydian dominant)
       A   -->   A-7b5          (half-diminished or Locrian #2)
       B   -->   B7alt          (altered or diminished whole-tone)

Really I'm not making this up! In fact, I'm basically just copying Levine's
discussion. If you want to see this discussed properly get his excellent
book. But it's interesting to me that we have six very different looking
chord symbols which are mostly just telling us what note to use in the
bottom of the voicing.

Here's a quote I believe came from Gene Kupta (I could easily be wrong)
which is appropriate enough to end on....

     "The only difference between the beboppers and us is
      they flat their fifths, while we drink ours".


--Bruce