Songs that use 9th, 11th and 13th chords

this video is sponsored by tone gym upper chord extensions are where we take a chord but we add notes from beyond the octave on top of that chord so for example if this is a c we could have c nine or we could have c 11 or even c 13. [Music] perhaps the most common upper chord extension you'll encounter at least in pop and rock music is the 11 chord in the long and winding road by the beatles we can see a b-flat 11 chord here [Music] in the song easy by the commodores we can see an e flat 11 here [Music] we can also see an 11 chord here sung between the vocal harmonies in good vibrations [Music] the 11 chord functions in all three of these examples as the fifth chord of the key the dominant chord this is probably the most common use of an 11 chord to resolve us from the fifth chord of the key [Music] back to the tonic chord here in fact the full name of the 11 chord is the dominant 11 chord but on a chord chart it will just be labeled as 11. in the same way that a seven chord is actually a dominant seven we just shorten the name to simply seven so that's the 11 but now let's look at a different upper chord extension the nine we can see a ninth chord a dominant ninth chord at work here in james brown's papa's got a brand new bag [Music] and in let's stay together by our green we can see a couple minor 9th chords [Music] [Music] so what's the difference between a nine chord and a minor nine chord well literally just the third the third degree of the chord c minor nine and c nine for example both have the exact same notes apart from the third degree for the minor nine we have a minor third the e flat in this example and for the regular dominant nine chord we have a major third e natural there's also a third type of nine chord we could have a major 9. the major 9 chord c major 9 for example has a major 3rd like the regular c9 chord did but unlike the c9 chord the 7th degree is a major 7th these are the three main varieties of upper chord extension that we can have so whether we're talking about nines elevens or thirteens we can either have them in dominant form minor form or major form so that's the dominant nine chord the minor nine chord and the major nine chord but what about this chord just a c major chord with a nine added on top this chord is described as an add nine chord because we're literally just taking a regular triad c major for example and then adding the ninth degree on top c add nine is actually a particularly common guitar chord because it's easily accessible as an open chord for example we can see this chord at work here in wonder wall by oasis so what exactly is the difference between add nine and nine what's the difference for example between c add nine and c nine well with an add nine chord we basically do exactly what it says on the tin we take a normal c chord and then we add the ninth degree on top that's it however with a full c9 chord with a dominant ninth chord we don't just add the ninth on top we have to stack up to it so a c9 chord has a secret seventh degree so you could technically even call c9 a c7 add9 so how are you meant to know this from the chord name well you don't really you just have to learn the convention much like how we learn that the lowercase m refers to a minor chord or that a7 refers to a dominant seven chord with upper chord extensions like nines elevens and thirteens we just have to learn these rules about how you're meant to stack up to the note described not just add it on top for example an e flat 11 chord isn't just an e flat chord with the 11th degree added on top that would be an e flat add 11. to get a true e flat 11 chord we have to stack up to the 11th degree so that involves including the 7th and also the 9th meaning that all of the notes are stacked by a third like this and to take this even further with a 13 chord we have to stack the 7th 9th and 11th all up to get to our 13th now as you can hear a fully stacked 13 chord like this is very dense the sheer number of notes not only gives the chord a muddy quality but it also makes the chord quite impractical to play and this takes us to the second secret rule of upper chord extensions if rule one of upper chord extensions is that you have to stack up to the note described the second rule is that you don't actually have to play the fifth or the third degrees for example that b-flat 11 chord that we saw back at the beginning in the long and winding road isn't a fully voiced b-flat 11 chord it doesn't include all six potential notes of a b-flat 11 chord because as i mentioned that rarely actually happens in practice if we look at the actual notes that paul is playing here he's not playing the third or fifth degrees of this chord in fact he's effectively actually playing an a flat triad with a b flat note in the bass by dropping the third and the fifth from the 11 chord it not only makes the chord much easier to play but it thins out the texture giving us a cleaner clearer sound and as i mentioned it means that the right hand is effectively just playing an a flat major triad and the left hand is playing a b flat note down below which means we could actually describe this b flat 11 chord as a flat over b flat a flat slash b flat this can actually be a much easier way to conceptualize upper chord extensions rather than trying to have to work out what the 11th degree of a b flat chord is you can think about it as an a flat chord with a b flat down below thinking about upper chord extensions like this particularly the 11s and the 13s makes them so much easier to process so much easier to think about and you'll often see them on chord charts written like this as slash chords if we look at the verse of rock with you by michael jackson the chord progression is actually e flat minor 9 a flat 11 b flat 11. [Music] but on the published sheet music these 11 chords are notated as slash chords g flat over a flat rather than a flat 11 and a flat over b flat rather than b flat 11. a similar example is never too much by luffor van dross which opens with this move up and down adjacent 11 chords so we effectively get this whole torrent of 11 chords [Music] but on the sheet music you'll see that they're notated as slash chords instead sometimes labeling music with upper chord extensions rather than slash chords just makes a fairly straightforward chord progression much harder to process much harder to perform i think a lot of musicians would prefer to see this written down than this both for the exact same chord progression but the way that we think about it the way that we conceptualize it is different tone gym is an ear training tool that musicians can use to improve their perception of intervals tone gym basically makes ear training into a game for example their departures game will play you an interval and then you have to guess which interval is when you get the answer right you'll progress to new levels with more and more challenging intervals or if you want to improve your perception of rhythm then you can play their rhythmic parrot game where you'll be playing a rhythm and you have to play it back as accurately as possible improving your ear will do wonders for your musicianship and tone gym is an easy and fun way to do that use the link in the description to find out more about tone gym and now let's return to upper chord extensions and slash chords as we were saying before labeling upper chord extensions like 11s and 13s as slash chords can make them easier to play easier to understand it just removes unnecessary friction when you're reading them for example sunday morning by maroon 5 is based around this repeating chord progression d minor 9 g13 and c major 9. [Music] for a lot of performers seeing that chord progression written down like that could be quite intimidating however this isn't really a difficult song if we instead write these down as slash chords the chord progression suddenly becomes a lot more accessible the d minor 9 here is actually an f major 7 over the note d so we can write it as f major 7 slash d the g 13 chord is also an f major 7 chord but this time over the note g so for these first two chords the right hand of the piano is actually not changing at all just the left hand is changing from d to g which is something that you might not initially clock if you were reading these chord symbols as d minor 9 and g 13. so we've now talked about the main types of chord extensions the nines the elevens the thirteens but what if we made alterations to these what if we made some other notes sharp or flat for example if we had c flat nine or perhaps even c sharp 11. one of the most well known altered upper chord extensions is the seven sharp nine chord often referred to as the hendrix chord as the name suggests hendrix was quite a fan of this chord for example we can see it here in purple haze [Music] [Applause] the e7 sharp 9 chord is a regular e7 chord but with the raised 9th degree the sharpened 9th degree added on top the regular 9th degree would be f sharp so the sharp 9th degree would be f double sharp or g natural now although we associate this chord with hendrix this chord was of course used well before hendrix for example we can see a seven sharp nine chord here in mars davis's all blues and in fact the use of this chord here in all blues was what inspired pink floyd's rick wright to include the same chord in floyd's classic track breathe i i came from jazz basically and i love that's my favorite that's my inspiration there's a certain chord which is that is totally down to a chord i had heard on actually miles davis album when we're doing breathe we got to g and how do you get to e again well again normally you go but um i remember this chord and i remember working it out at home listening to the record and i just thought [Music] and the last variety of upper chord extension that we'll talk about today is what's called a six nine chord [Music] as the name would suggest this is a chord that includes both the sixth degree of the scale and the ninth degree for example we can see a d69 chord here in the song horse with no name by america on the first part of the journey [Music] now a more accurate descriptive name for this chord would be add six add nine as unlike in a regular ninth chord we're not including the seventh degree here we're just adding the sixth and the ninth on top of a regular triad and the last thing i'd like to talk about is how when people actually write songs with these upper chord extensions write songs that include 9th 11th and 13th the songwriter may or may not actually consciously be thinking about the chord in those terms for example i doubt that paul mccartney thought of this chord here as a b flat 11 chord i think he probably most likely thought of it as an a flat chord with a b flat note in the left hand and of course regardless of which way you think about it it's still going to sound just as great but the advantage to knowing both naming systems both ways of conceptualizing it is that you can speak both dialects of chords so if you're in a scenario when someone's asking you to play a b flat 11 chord you know what to do [Music] [Music] [Music] and a big thank you as always goes to everybody who supports me on patreon including a extra special thanks going to these wonderful people [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 186,546

Keywords: music theory, chords, 9 chords, 11 chords, 13 chords, flat 9, sharp 11, how to play, songs that use, examples, pop songs, rock songs, analysis, harmony, dominant

Id: _GXLqQ6z6z8

Length: 17min 1sec (1021 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 17 2022