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In most sheet music books, the notation Cdim or C denotes a diminished seventh chord with root C; but it may also happen, mostly in modern jazz books and some music theory literature, that Cdim or C denotes a diminished triad (more commonly denoted Cm), while Cdim 7 or C 7 in these books denotes a diminished seventh chord (corresponding to Cm).

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Today, I want to cover passing chords.

It's a topic I get asked about often... but it's a simple concept once you understand it.

Passing chords help you get to and from main chords in your progression. They may or may not be in the key you're in.

They are like connecting devices, making your music more interesting. Sure you can go from C major to A minor to D minor to G7 but there are ways to enhance this progression when you understand passing chords.

One of the most common passing chords is the diminished 7.

Whenever you want to go to the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and even 7th tones of the scale, try placing a diminished 7 chord a half step lower.

So if you're in C major and you want to go to A minor (the 6th degree of C), you'd ask yourself what is a half step lower than "A" - answer: Ab. You'd simply play an Ab diminished 7 chord prior to your A minor 7.

More Passing Chords

Put a Db dim 7 (or C# dim7) prior to D minor 7:

An Eb dim 7 prior to E minor 7.

Passing Chords Are Simple

Of course, play around with inversions (the order in which you play the chords) and always be aware of your melody.

Adding passing chords is a great way to spice up your progressions.

The following two tabs change content below.

Tagged as: passing chords

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Passing Chords - Use These Chords Almost Anywhere

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Today, I want to cover passing chords. It's a topic I get asked about often... but it's a simple concept once you understand it. Passing chords help you get to and from main chords in your progression. They may or may not be in the key you're in.

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JAZCLASS : The 2-5-1 Chord Progression of the harmonic minor scale by Michael Furstner

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JAZCLASS - Jazz chords lesson, learn to play the 2-5-1 chord progression of the harmonic minor scale by Michael Furstner

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Add the 6th when passing from chord to chord...

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Half-diminished seventh chord - Wikipedia

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In music theory, the half-diminished seventh chord (also known as a half-diminished chord or a minor seventh flat five chord) is a seventh chord composed of a root note, together with a minor third, a diminished fifth, and a minor seventh (1, 3, 5, 7).

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NILE - Enduring The Eternal Molestation Of Flame (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

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Music video for NILE "Enduring The Eternal Molestation Of Flame" ORDER HERE: http://bit.ly/atgosaff SUBSCRIBE to Nile YouTube: http://bit.ly/subs-nle-yt SUBSCRIBE to Nuclear Blast YouTube: http://bit.ly/subs-nb-yt Directed by: Jon Simvonis Produced by: Jon Simvonis GET THE ALBUM AT: Nuclear Blast USA: http://store.nuclearblastusa.com/Artist/Nile/11491 Nuclear Blast EU: http://www.nuclearblast.de/suche/nile iTunes: http://bit.ly/atgosaff Amazon: http://amzn.to/atgos FOLLOW: Like: https://www.facebook.com/nilecatacombs Watch: http://youtube.com/NileCatacombs Follow: https://twitter.com/NileCatacombs

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F#7sus4 Akkordform. Diese Videoserie zeigt Dir im Detail die wichtigsten Akkorde und Ihre Hauptpositionen/Griffbilder auf der Gitarre. Sie ist als Nachschlagewerk gedacht und soll Dir eine genaue Sicht auf die gängigsten Akkordformen bieten. Viel Spaß und viel Erfolg! https://www.facebook.com/pages/VIP-Guitar/129754850420739 https://twitter.com/#!/HorstKeller https://www.youtube.com/user/VIPGuitarPros Performance: Sebastian Minet / VIP-Guitar https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=BS9TKPJUVXB7G Jede Spende ermöglicht uns mehr Zeit für weitere Videos aufzubringen.

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E9 Chord is THE Funk Chord. Super Fly. Get Down. Funk Guitar Course Lesson Tutorial s1p3

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Funk Guitar Course Lesson 3: E9 Chord is THE Funk chord More: http://www.justinguitar.com/en/FU-503-E9-THEFunkChord.php Of course there are many chords used in Funk but probably the best one to start off with (and very commonly used) is the E9 chord - super cool and and essential for your funk journey!

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an improvisation after the manner of a snake charmer with a Persian type scale

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How To Play a C Minor Pentatonic Scale on Piano

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How to play a C minor pentatonic scale on piano. Notes: C Eb F G Bb C. Fingering: 1 2 3 1 2 3.

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D minor scale, separate hands. Played 2 times each hand, one slow and one fast. For more on my teaching, feel free to visit my site http://mypianoteacher.net http://www.facebook.com/mypianoteachersg

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The Persian scale is a musical scale occasionally found in guitar scale books, along other scales inspired by Middle Eastern music. It is characterized by the liberal use of half steps (4), augmented seconds (2), and frequent use of chromaticism.

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The more commonly used of these scales, also called Hungarian minor scale or double harmonic minor scale, can be found by sharpening the 4th degree of the harmonic minor scale to introduce an additional gap, or augmented second. This is a symmetrical scale that is very common in Flamenco.

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In music, the Phrygian dominant scale is the fifth mode of the harmonic minor scale, the fifth being the dominant. Also called the altered Phrygian scale, dominant flat 2 flat 6 (in jazz), the Freygish scale (also spelled Fraigish), or simply the fifth mode of the harmonic minor scale.

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Minor & Major

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The first two phrases of the melody from Stephen Foster's "Oh! Susanna" are based on the major pentatonic scale[1]

Pentatonic scale in Ravel's Ma mère l'Oye III. "Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes", mm. 9-13.[1]

Pentatonic scale in Debussy's Voiles, Preludes, Book I, no. 2, mm. 43-45.[2]

A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale).

Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancient civilizations and are still used in various musical styles to this day. There are two types of pentatonic scales: those with semitones (hemitonic) and those without (anhemitonic).

Minyō scale on D,[4] equivalent to yo scale on D,[5] with brackets on fourths

Miyako-bushi scale on D, equivalent to in scale on D, with brackets on fourths[6]

Musicology commonly classifies pentatonic scales as either hemitonic or anhemitonic. Hemitonic scales contain one or more semitones and anhemitonic scales do not contain semitones. (For example, in Japanese music the anhemitonic yo scale is contrasted with the hemitonic in scale.) Hemitonic pentatonic scales are also called "ditonic scales", because the largest interval in them is the ditone (e.g., in the scale C-E-F-G-B-C, the interval found between C-E and G-B). (This should not be confused with the identical term also used by musicologists to describe a scale including only two notes.)

Anhemitonic pentatonic scales can be constructed in many ways. The major pentatonic scale may be thought of as a gapped or incomplete major scale, using scale tones 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of the major scale. One construction takes five consecutive pitches from the circle of fifths; starting on C, these are C, G, D, A, and E. Rearranging the pitches to fit into one octave creates the major pentatonic scale: C, D, E, G, A.

Another construction works backward: It omits two pitches from a diatonic scale. If one were to begin with a C major scale, for example, one might omit the fourth and the seventh scale degrees, F and B. The remaining notes then make up the major pentatonic scale: C, D, E, G, and A.

Omitting the third and seventh degrees of the C major scale obtains the notes for another transpositionally equivalent anhemitonic pentatonic scale: F, G, A, C, D. Omitting the first and fourth degrees of the C major scale gives a third anhemitonic pentatonic scale: G, A, B, D, E.

The black keys on a piano keyboard comprise a G-flat (or equivalently, F-sharp) major pentatonic scale: G-flat, A-flat, B-flat, D-flat, and E-flat, which is exploited in Chopin's black key étude.

Although various hemitonic pentatonic scales might be called minor, the term is most commonly applied to the relative minor pentatonic derived from the major pentatonic, using scale tones 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 of the natural minor scale. (It may also be considered a gapped blues scale.) The C minor pentatonic scale, the relative minor of the E-flat pentatonic scale, is C, E-flat, F, G, B-flat. The A minor pentatonic, the relative minor of C pentatonic, comprises the same tones as the C major pentatonic, starting on A, giving A, C, D, E, G. This minor pentatonic contains all three tones of an A minor triad.

The standard tuning of a guitar uses the notes of an E minor pentatonic scale: E-A-D-G-B-E, contributing to its frequency in popular music.

Japanese mode is based on Phrygian mode, but use scale tones 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 instead of scale tones 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7.

The pentatonic scale (containing notes C, D, E, G and A) has five modes, which are derived by treating a different note as the tonic:

Ricker assigned the major pentatonic scale mode I while Gilchrist assigned it mode III.

Each mode of the pentatonic scale (containing notes C, D, E, G and A) can be thought of as the five scale degrees shared by three different diatonic modes with the two remaining scale degrees removed:

Each pentatonic scale can be thought of as the five notes shared by three different heptatonic modes.

Each mode of the pentatonic scale (containing notes C, D, E, G and A) features different intervals of notes from the tonic according to the table below. Note the omission of the semitones above (m2) and below (M7) the tonic as well as the tritone (TT).

The intervals used in the pentatonic scale compared to the heptatonic scale.

Ben Johnston gives the following Pythagorean tuning for the minor pentatonic scale:

Naturals in that table are not the alphabetic series A to G without sharps and flats: Naturals are reciprocals of terms in the Harmonic series (mathematics), which are in practice multiples of a fundamental frequency. This may be derived by proceeding with the principle that historically gives the Pythagorean diatonic and chromatic scales, stacking perfect fifths with 3:2 frequency proportions (C-G-D-A-E). Considering the anhemitonic scale as a subset of a just diatonic scale, it is tuned thus: 20:24:27:30:36 (A-C-D-E-G = ----).

Just pentatonic tuning of Lou Harrison's "American gamelan", Old Granddad.[13] This gives the proportions 24:27:30:36:40.

(A minor seventh can be 7:4, 16:9, or 9:5; a major sixth can be 27:16 or 5:3. Both were chosen to minimize ratio parts.)

Assigning precise frequency proportions to the pentatonic scales of most cultures is problematic as tuning may be variable.

Slendro approximated in Western notation.[14]

For example, the slendro anhemitonic scale and its modes of Java and Bali are said to approach, very roughly, an equally-tempered five-note scale, but their tunings vary dramatically from gamelan to gamelan.

Pentatonic scales occur in many musical traditions:

Indian classical music, both Hindustani and Carnatic traditions

Ancient Tamil music, see the Section "Evolution of panns".

Peruvian Chicha cumbia

Indigenous ethnic folk music of Assam

Sudanese Arab Music

Folk songs of peoples of the Middle Volga region (such as the Mari, the Chuvash and Tatars)

Native American music, especially in highland South America (the Quechua and Aymara), as well as among the North American Indians of the Pacific Northwest[citation needed ]

Most Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic music of Siberia and the Asiatic steppe is written in the pentatonic scale

Western Impressionistic composers such as French composer Claude Debussy.

Examples of its use include Chopin's Etude in G-flat major, op. 10, no. 5, the "Black Key" etude, in the major pentatonic.

Giacomo Puccini used pentatonic scales in his operas Madama Butterfly and to imitate east Asian musical styles. Puccini also used whole-tone scales in the former to invoke similar ideas.

Indian classical music has hundreds of ragas, of which many are pentatonic. Examples include Raag Abhogi Kanada (C, D, E-flat, F, A), Raag Bhupali (C, D, E, G, A), Raag Bairagi (C, D-flat, F, G, B-flat), Raag Chandrakauns (C, E-flat, F, A-flat, B), Raag Dhani (C, E-flat, F, G, B-flat), Raag Durga (C, D, F, G, A), Raag Gunakari (C, D-flat, F, G, A-flat), Raag Hamsadhwani (C, D, E, G, B), Raag Hindol (C, E, F#, A, B), Raag Kalavati (C, E, G, A, B-flat), Raag Katyayani (C, D, E-flat, G, A-flat), Raag Malkauns (C, E-flat, F, A-flat, B-flat), Raag Megh (C, D, F, G, B-flat), Raag Shivaranjani (C, D, E-flat, G, A), Raag Shuddha Sarang (C, D, F#, G, B), Raag Tilang (C, E, F, G, B), Raag Vibhas (C, D-flat, E, G, A-flat), Raag Vrindavani Sarang (C, D, F, G, B), and others.

(For Tamil Music System, See here - Ancient Tamil music#Evolution of panns )

D Yo scale

The major pentatonic scale is the basic scale of the music of China and the music of Mongolia as well as many Southeast Asian musical traditions such as that of the Karen people as well as the indigenous Assamese ethnic groups. The pentatonic scale predominates most Eastern countries as opposed to Western countries where the heptatonic scale is more commonly used. The fundamental tones (without meri or kari techniques) rendered by the five holes of the Japanese shakuhachi flute play a minor pentatonic scale. The yo scale used in Japanese shomyo Buddhist chants and gagaku imperial court music is an anhemitonic pentatonic scale shown below, which is the fourth mode of the major pentatonic scale.

Temperated pentatoncs

In Javanese gamelan music, the slendro scale has five tones, of which four are emphasized in classical music. Another scale, pelog, has seven tones, and is generally played using one of three five-tone subsets known as pathet, in which certain notes are avoided while others are emphasized.

Somali music uses a distinct modal system that is pentatonic, with characteristically long intervals between some notes. As with many other aspects of Somali culture and tradition, tastes in music and lyrics are strongly linked with those in nearby Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Sudan.

In Scottish music, the pentatonic scale is very common. Seumas MacNeill suggests that the Great Highland bagpipe scale with its augmented fourth and diminished seventh is "a device to produce as many pentatonic scales as possible from its nine notes" (although these two features are not in the same scale). Roderick Cannon explains these pentatonic scales and their use in more detail, both in Piobaireachd and light music. It also features in Irish traditional music, either purely or almost so. The minor pentatonic is used in Appalachian folk music. Blackfoot music most often uses anhemitonic tetratonic or pentatonic scales.

In Andean music, the pentatonic scale is used substantially minor, sometimes major, and seldom in scale. In the most ancient genres of Andean music being performed without string instruments (only with winds and percussion), pentatonic melody is often led with parallel fifths and fourths, so formally this music is hexatonic.

Rock guitar solo almost all over B minor pentatonic

Jazz music commonly uses both the major and the minor pentatonic scales. Pentatonic scales are useful for improvisers in modern jazz, pop, and rock contexts because they work well over several chords diatonic to the same key, often better than the parent scale. For example, the blues scale is predominantly derived from the minor pentatonic scale, a very popular scale for improvisation in the realms of blues and rock alike. For instance, over a C major triad (C, E, G) in the key of C major, the note F can be perceived as dissonant as it is a half step above the major third (E) of the chord. It is for this reason commonly avoided. Using the major pentatonic scale is an easy way out of this problem. The scale tones 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 (from the major pentatonic) are either major triad tones (1, 3, 5) or common consonant extensions (2, 6) of major triads. For the corresponding relative minor pentatonic, scale tones 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 work the same way, either as minor triad tones (1, 3, 5) or as common extensions (4, 7), as they all avoid being a half step from a chord tone.

U.S. military cadences, or jodies, which keep soldiers in step while marching or running, also typically use pentatonic scales.

Hymns and other religious music sometimes use the pentatonic scale; for example, the melody of the hymn " Amazing Grace", one of the most famous pieces in religious music.

The common pentatonic major and minor scales (C-D-E-G-A and C-E-F-G-B, respectively) are useful in modal composing, as both scales allow a melody to be modally ambiguous between their respective major ( Ionian, Lydian, Mixolydian) and minor ( Aeolian, Phrygian, Dorian) modes ( Locrian excluded). With either modal or non-modal writing, however, the harmonization of a pentatonic melody does not necessarily have to be derived from only the pentatonic pitches.

Most Tuareg songs are pentatonic, as is most other music from the Sahel and Sudan regions.

The pentatonic scale plays a significant role in music education, particularly in Orff-based, Kodály-based, and Waldorf methodologies at the primary or elementary level.

The Orff system places a heavy emphasis on developing creativity through improvisation in children, largely through use of the pentatonic scale. Orff instruments, such as xylophones, bells and other metallophones, use wooden bars, metal bars or bells, which can be removed by the teacher, leaving only those corresponding to the pentatonic scale, which Carl Orff himself believed to be children's native tonality.

Children begin improvising using only these bars, and over time, more bars are added at the teacher's discretion until the complete diatonic scale is being used. Orff believed that the use of the pentatonic scale at such a young age was appropriate to the development of each child, since the nature of the scale meant that it was impossible for the child to make any real harmonic mistakes.

In Waldorf education, pentatonic music is considered to be appropriate for young children due to its simplicity and unselfconscious openness of expression. Pentatonic music centered on intervals of the fifth is often sung and played in early childhood; progressively smaller intervals are emphasized within primarily pentatonic as children progress through the early school years. At around nine years of age the music begins to center on first folk music using a six-tone scale, and then the modern diatonic scales, with the goal of reflecting the children's developmental progress in their musical experience. Pentatonic instruments used include lyres, pentatonic flutes, and tone bars; special instruments have been designed and built for the Waldorf curriculum.

Jeff Burns, Pentatonic Scales for the Jazz-Rock Keyboardist (Lebanon, Indiana: Houston Publishing, 1997). ISBN 978-0-7935-7679-1.

Jeremy Day-O'Connell, Pentatonicism from the Eighteenth Century to Debussy (Rochester: University of Rochester Press 2007) - the first comprehensive account of the increasing use of the pentatonic scale in 19th-century Western art music, including a catalogue of over 400 musical examples.

Trần Văn Khê, "Le pentatonique est-il universel? Quelques reflexions sur le pentatonisme", The World of Music 19, nos. 1-2:85-91 (1977). English translation: "Is the pentatonic universal? A few reflections on pentatonism" pp. 76-84. - via JSTOR (subscription required)

Yamaguchi Masaya (New York: Charles Colin, 2002; New York: Masaya Music, Revised 2006). Pentatonicism in Jazz: Creative Aspects and Practice. ISBN 0-9676353-1-4

Kurt Reinhard, "On the problem of pre-pentatonic scales: particularly the third-second nucleus", Journal of the International Folk Music Council 10 (1958). JSTOR 835966 (subscription required)

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A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancient civilizations and are still used in various musical styles to this day.

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Each degree of the scale, starting with the tonic (the first, lowest note of the scale), is represented by a number. Their difference from the major scale is shown. Thus, a number without a sharp or flat represents a major (or perfect) interval. A number with a flat represents a minor interval.

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A 7sus4 Guitar Chord Chart and Fingering (A Dominant 7 suspended 4) - TheGuitarLesson.com

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A 7sus4 Guitar Chord Chart and Fingering (A Dominant 7 suspended 4) guitar chord chart, fingering, and notes for the A 7sus4 Guitar Chord Chart and Fingering (A Dominant 7 suspended 4) chord.

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The term is borrowed from the contrapuntal technique of suspension , where a note from a previous chord is carried over to the next chord, and then resolved down to the third or tonic, suspending a note from the previous chord.

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E13 chord diagram. For alternate fingerings, click on the chord diagram.

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In modern pop/jazz harmony, after the dominant thirteenth, a thirteenth chord (usually notated as , e.g. C 13) contains an implied flatted seventh interval. Thus, a C 13 consists of C, E, G, B, and A. The underlying harmony during a thirteenth chord is usually Mixolydian or Lydian dominant (see chord-scale system).

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Example of tonic dominant ninth chords include Bobby Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe" and Wild Cherry's " Play That Funky Music". James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)" features a striking dominant 9th arpeggio played staccato at the end of the opening 12-bar sequence.

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E9 chord diagram. For alternate fingerings, click on the chord diagram.