I want to talk about this some,
This piece is a study in something I discovered recently while recording my last two albums. While at the keyboard I played a simple 2-5-1 progression, G minor7 - C7 - F Major, common enough. But the melody I played on top of the chords was G - A - Bb, one note for each of the chords in the previous progression. It basically sounds wrong! Or off by a fourth which is so close it begs you to give into changing the chords to C minor7 - F7 - Bb Major, and everything will be restored to some of the most harmonious sound there is.
I was captivated by what I had stumbled upon because of the challenge to resolve this melody. The G fits perfectly over the G minor7 chord as it's the root, probably the most powerful chord tone to choose. The A makes a beautiful 13th sound for the C7 chord. Then we get to the end of the cadence and there's the blaring Bb (4th) over the F Major chord (in theory, you'd have some major explaining to do)! Fortunately I was ready to make this work because I was finding ways in my playing to make non-chord or even non-scale tones find resolution. I found that massaging the melody on the chord in certain ways helps settle it in. Rolling, arpeggiating, adding scale notes to the chord help dilute the dissonance. But, I found simply playing the melody over the roots of the chord in a minimalist way and getting it to resolve by maybe softening the final note works too. I'm getting used to the sound!
Finally, while recording tunes for the albums mentioned above, the song I went to do next was Giant Steps. I knew I wanted to re-harmonize it so I used this sound in the song which lent itself perfectly to this approach as it's full of this particular progression.
This piece is a study in something I discovered recently while recording my last two albums. While at the keyboard I played a simple 2-5-1 progression, G minor7 - C7 - F Major, common enough. But the melody I played on top of the chords was G - A - Bb, one note for each of the chords in the previous progression. It basically sounds wrong! Or off by a fourth which is so close it begs you to give into changing the chords to C minor7 - F7 - Bb Major, and everything will be restored to some of the most harmonious sound there is.
I was captivated by what I had stumbled upon because of the challenge to resolve this melody. The G fits perfectly over the G minor7 chord as it's the root, probably the most powerful chord tone to choose. The A makes a beautiful 13th sound for the C7 chord. Then we get to the end of the cadence and there's the blaring Bb (4th) over the F Major chord (in theory, you'd have some major explaining to do)! Fortunately I was ready to make this work because I was finding ways in my playing to make non-chord or even non-scale tones find resolution. I found that massaging the melody on the chord in certain ways helps settle it in. Rolling, arpeggiating, adding scale notes to the chord help dilute the dissonance. But, I found simply playing the melody over the roots of the chord in a minimalist way and getting it to resolve by maybe softening the final note works too. I'm getting used to the sound!
Finally, while recording tunes for the albums mentioned above, the song I went to do next was Giant Steps. I knew I wanted to re-harmonize it so I used this sound in the song which lent itself perfectly to this approach as it's full of this particular progression.