Fretprints · free PDF guide
A jazz waltz in F with a reputation for having a lot of chords. It has fewer than it looks.
Walking the tune chord by chord, the symbols outnumber the note collections about two to one. Five of the chords are one collection. And two of the dominants turn out to be collections you have already played, under a different name.
Four pages. Every collection in the tune ranked by how far it sits from the key, and the rule that makes two chords into one.
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The one chord, the two chord, the three chord, the slash chord over C and the five chord all sit inside the same seven notes. The B flat triad over C, the C7sus4 and the G minor seven over C are three names for one sound, and none of them asks you to move a note.
So the work is not fourteen scales. It is noticing the few places where the collection genuinely moves, and knowing what moves when it does.
Twelve chromatic steps. Blue is shared with the key of F, orange is a note that arrives, struck out is a note that leaves. The number is how many change.
nothing changes — this is home
B♭ leaves, B arrives
D E leaves, D♭ E♭ arrives
F B♭ leaves, G♭ B arrives
D E G A leaves, D♭ E♭ G♭ A♭ arrives
D F G A leaves, D♭ E♭ G♭ A♭ arrives
C D E A leaves, D♭ E♭ A♭ B arrives
Nothing in the tune sits three notes out. The distances that occur are zero, one, two and four.
Twice in the walkthrough a chord gets two names in the same breath. Those are not two options to choose between. They are the same seven notes.
Lydian dominant on X = melodic minor a fifth above X
altered on X = melodic minor a half step above X
so Lydian dominant on X = altered a tritone away
That holds in all twelve keys with no exceptions:
Learn the E flat Lydian dominant once, for the second chord of the tune, and you also own the altered sound on the A seven in the turnaround. Same collection, nothing new.
It is tempting to say every change in this tune is a one- or two-note move. It is not true, and the place it breaks is the place that gives the tune its character. Measuring each collection against the one before it: across the A section the average move is 1.0 note. Across the B section it is 2.8, with 5 separate four-note moves.
The flat six that opens the bridge is four notes from the key of F. Then the gentlest thing in the tune happens: it becomes D flat melodic minor, and one note moves to do it.
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