So that's one issue. Another problem is the nature of melodic minor. Unlike diatonic modes, melodic minor modes have two color tones instead of one. Let me explain if that confuses you For example, in F Lydian we can play F and then G and BAM! We then know we're in fact in F lydian because we've played enough scale tones for our brain to just 'Get it', Right? If we play F then Gm then we know it's F major. Two chords is all you need to establish a basic modal sound in diatonic modes. BUT, melodic minor is a different animal altogether. Let's look at C Melodic Minor. The chords are Cm Dm Ebaug F G Adim Bdim. As you can see, there is only four major and minor chords.
So how would we get the melodic minor or dorian #7 if you will, sound to come out in two chords?
Well we can play Cm then G right? Well you can but that isn't enough to give you that cool melodic minor sound. Instead it just sounds like a generic C minor vamp. Ok, well let's try Cm to F. Ok well, that just sounds like C Dorian. Truth is, it's impossible to play a regular triad and capture the modal essence of these modes. Why? Because two color tones means it's a complicated scale. So it's quite apparent that working with basic triads is very limiting in the long run. Think about it, we're 21st century musicians, we don't have to rely on pure triadic harmony. Think about jazz? dominant 13#5#9? m11b13/D? These are HUGE chords! Even pop music uses big extended harmony for complicated voice leading, right? So in order to capture these modes, we need to extend our harmony system.
Extended Harmony VS Traditional Harmony
It's quite apparent that Jazz Harmony is super different from traditional harmony. Jazz not only uses big chords with large amounts of color and chromatic movement, but also complex voice leading and rhythmic ideas. That's what sets Jazz apart from any other style.
While Jazz Musicians started using these HUGE chord voicings, this kind of idea is by no means limited to Jazz or any off shoot of jazz for that matter.
In the world of Jazz, the idea is based on extending our chords up the piano until the whole scale is encompassed by a single chord. This voicing is seldom if ever seen as jazz musicians love to play good chord voicings, not just a dumb cluster of thirds with a few Bass notes. The idea, in theory, is to have the ability to include ANY note in a scale you are soloing with available as a chord tone. But the thing is, even with jazz, it's still just Extra color. It's difficult to imagine a system that functionally used extended harmony beyond the range of voice leading or color. The is the difference between Extended chords and Extended harmony.
Extended chords doesn't necessarily imply extended harmony, it just means chords with more notes. Extended harmony refers to using extended chords as a basis for tonal progressions that would be otherwise impossible or just lame using regular triads. I'm not implying that jazz never uses extended harmony. Far from it, jazz uses it all the time. But I was looking for something different, something that didn't sound like jazz. I was looking for a system that would play out melodic minor in a way that was colorful yet functional. I wanted chords that had a pure sound that resembled the feel of major and minor triads. More importantly, wanted a system that required the use of extended harmony. Why? I dunno, I thought it would be fun, but also to get a stable harmonic sound in scales like melodic minor.
A Pentachordal System
So what would work? To start with, I didn't wanna throw major and minor triads in the trash or anything. I wanted to EXTEND the triads into slightly larger chords that functioned in a similar yet slightly more complex way. Well, I could have just used seventh chords and easily got the feel of the melodic minor in two chords such as CminMaj7 to G7 but I didn't like these at all. There's something about the seventh that I didn't feel would work in my system. It's probably because the minor seventh is a fairly dissonant interval. Dominant seventh chords don't feel pure, they feel like they have a pull to them and I didn't want that. Minor sevenths are better but I just didn't feel that chords with a Minor 7th intervals from the Root note sounded very pure. I wanted chords that were harmonically stable and resembled the feel of major and minor triads. So, I decided to skip the seventh due to harmonic tension that I didn't want all the time. So after messing around, I found that the best thing to do is to add the major ninth and major eleventh, which is the same thing as the major second and the perfect fourth. Making a 1 3 5 9 11 chord or 1 2 3 4 5 chord, same thing. I could have went to 13 but I decided to stay with 11 and 9. So I settled with a pentadic harmony system instead of the traditional triadic harmony system. This really opens up a whole new world of chordal ideas! Having pentads, there was more I could do with melodic minor than with triads. Plus, they just sound cool! So upon having major and minor chords with triads,
I would do the same with pentads. I decided that the Sharp Eleventh would fit the major pentad sound better than the natural eleventh. So I decided on the major pentad being the 1 3 5 9 and #11. I was basically going with a secundal harmony system as the the pentads were based on seconds rather than thirds. This is obvious if you play the chord all in the same octave. However, voicing the chord nicely has a big effect on how good the chord sounds. To the right is an example of an open and closed voicing of the C major pentad. Generally, I think the sharp eleventh sounds much better in a different octave from the fifth because they clash if they're right next to each other. While the chord on the right sounds pure and decently unified as does a triad, the chord on the right sounds more like a cluster of extra color. I also tried different voicings and found that the chord sounds even better spread out where the ninth is down an octave but this voicing is near impossible to play on a single instrument. The third could go in the bass or the upper registry but the chord is more open sounding with the third in the bass with the 11th and ninth in the upper registries.
In addition, there is also the minor pentad which of course, has a flat third but also has a perfect eleventh meaning, it's not sharped. This means that the third and eleventh or fourth, if you will, are directly sharped or flatted for major and minor .chords. Although within this harmony system, the fourth has a special place of it's own, it somewhat resembles the function of the third. To me, the minor pentad almost feels like a minor seventh chord but a bit more harmonically stable.
That makes the Major and Minor pentads, and you can already tell how much more versatility we get from these 5 tone chords rather than 3 tone chords.
That makes the Major and Minor pentads, and you can already tell how much more versatility we get from these 5 tone chords rather than 3 tone chords.
Uses and fun of Extended 5-tone Harmony
You've seen the major and minor pentad, and if you listen to the chords, they sound fairly unified. Although like I said, voicing has alot to do with how good or connected the notes sound together. With five tone harmony though, major and minor is by no means the end. There is a chord we can make by taking the major pentad and flatting the sharp eleventh to a normal eleventh. This chord is odd, it sounds a bit like a dominant seventh but not as dissonant. I call it neutral or half-major.
There's also a Half-Minor chord which is a bit dark sounding. If we play with the idea of altering pitches, we can get all sorts of chords just with these five pitches. We can even move the third up again to an F to have what I call the Super chord. This chord is just strange. It has a sound that resembles the sus4 chord due to the F but having the sharp eleventh, the chord actually has a quality to it like major or minor, but it's neither. It seems to be a stable chord but has a slightly dissonant quality, which is strange. This demonstrates how pentadic harmony can really bring new life to music and chords! We can also play around with altering the ninth and fifth degrees as well. Here are a few examples of some of the cool chords we can make:
In case you're wondering, the prefix "sub" means that the ninth is flattened, this can create very different sounding chords. Listen to the Dim pentad and compare it with the sound of the sub-dim pentad. You will also notice how in the augmented chord, the ninth is augmented as well as the fifth.
Pentadic Harmony advantages
Pentadic harmony not only offers alot of new chord possibilities, but also allows for smooth, natural chord changes that wouldn't sound as good with triads. For example, in lydian, going from D to C is very abrupt and has no real connection other than moving by a major second which isn't the best. However, in pentadic harmony, the C and D chord have notes that move chromatically which makes the connection sound smoother. Not only that but the C major chord and D half-major chord are not even the same which makes it sound cooler. In addition having more notes means we technically don't have to even play the fifth because we still have a full chord. If we're playing with triads and leave out the fifth, we end up with a boring third by itself which isn't even a full chord. BUT, if we have pentads, we can leave out the fifth and it's hardly noticeable as we have two more notes that make the chord sound good. This is cool because it means we can ignore diminished and augmented chords when we don't want them without going off key. This allows us to work with melodic minor modes in a nice, manner, and we can throw the augmented and diminished chords in the trash or keep them whenever we want them or not.
Working with Melodic Minor
Ok so now that we have this pentadic harmony in place, how do we use it to play melodic minor modes? First thing to do is harmonize the scale in pentads. For simplicity, we will ignore the fifth of the chords for now.
Now we have nice chords that all sound good together. We have gotten rid of the augmented and diminished chords completely and replaced them with better sounding pentads without the fifth. If we were to put the fifth back in, the 3rd, 6th and 7th chord in the scale would have a dissonant, unstable sound. So I wanted to leave it out, but for the sake of simplicity, I left it out of all the chords.
The thing with these pentads, even though they have five notes, the fifth or ninth can be left out at any time. Minor chords sound purer with the ninth left out. However, the chords must always have an eleventh. In order to know which sounds best where, you would need to listen but there are also some rules below to help you:
When playing chords with a sharp eleventh, it sounds better to include the ninth to soften up the dissonance. When playing chords with a natural eleventh, leaving the ninth out helps stabilize the chord. Anything with a sharp or flat fifth should just omit the five altogether to promote chord unity, although, sometimes you may want it. The eleventh is never omitted.
Voice leading and Tonal Movement
In addition to new chord flavors, being able to have full chords without the fifth. Pentadic harmony also has an advantage in tonal movement and voice leading that is kinda lame with triads.
Normally, the progression D major to C major is kind of abrupt and contains no chromatic movement. But, with pentads, there are more notes which may contain chromatic movement that didn't exist before. Look below at an example on the right showing D to C in regular Triads. Now look to the left to the progression with D half-major and C major pentads. You will notice that the triad version is slightly more unresolved sounding as well as lame voice leading wise. The pentads offer a richer sound when it comes to using these two chords in a cadence.
You'll notice how in the second chord, there is a major second on E and F# that resolved to D and G, the ninth and fifth of the C major pentad. This major second to perfect fourth movement is an important feature in this extended pentadic harmony.
Normally, the progression D major to C major is kind of abrupt and contains no chromatic movement. But, with pentads, there are more notes which may contain chromatic movement that didn't exist before. Look below at an example on the right showing D to C in regular Triads. Now look to the left to the progression with D half-major and C major pentads. You will notice that the triad version is slightly more unresolved sounding as well as lame voice leading wise. The pentads offer a richer sound when it comes to using these two chords in a cadence.
You'll notice how in the second chord, there is a major second on E and F# that resolved to D and G, the ninth and fifth of the C major pentad. This major second to perfect fourth movement is an important feature in this extended pentadic harmony.
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