stacked fourths

[wrench45us]

i'm at the point where i feel comfortable using diatonic 7ths and throwing in some 9th and extras now and then. The next step from what I look at nujazz or neo-soul or whatever is using the occasional stacked fourth.
i've tried this a few times and i like the sound, but get really lost with where to go with this. The sound needs a transition and I don't have that transition like I've built up with the 7th and 9th chords.
so it ended up sounding like too big or too early to a step.

I thought I'd throw this out and see what hints people may have for integrating stacked 4ths into a piece.

[Toxikator]

Do a search for "quartal chords"

http://www.jazzguitar.be/jazz_guitar_ch ... urths.html
http://www.ibreathemusic.com/forums/arc ... -7907.html
May provide some insight, I didn't read all of it.

[radiant.city]

Persichetti and Kostka talk about quartal and secundal harmony quite extensively in their texts. See if your library has either of those books, or if you can get them from another library through an inter-library loan program.

[VicDiesel]

I thought I'd throw this out and see what hints people may have for integrating stacked 4ths into a piece.

You can just pretend that they are part of classical harmony. For instance E-A-D is a C chord.




















What, need a hint? That's the 3rd-6th-9th step. Perfectly normal jazz practice.

Victor.

[wrench45us]

thanks Vic,
that's sort of the direction that has taken hold with a few evenings of trying things out

it looks like there are ways of going with fourths for a whole piece, but I really don't want to go there

if you build a chord on 4ths off the 3rd degree as you note C E A D
that moves nicely to
D G C

built on 4th degree C F Bb Eb
moves nicely to G C F

[VicDiesel]

if you build a chord on 4ths off the 3rd degree as you note C E A D
that moves nicely to
D G C

Hmmmmm......

That C chord has no leading tones, so it doesn't feel like it's moving anywhere.

You could do a II-V-I progression by playing F-B-E (that's 3-6-9 of Dm), F-B-E (that's 7-3-6 of G), and then resolve on E-A-D as a C chord.

Btw, are you an old prog rocker? Emerson Lake & Palmer did a piece in 4ths, Tarkus. Pretty cool, but's it's rather fast and so without the sheet music I wouldn't have figured out what was happening.

Victor.

[wrench45us]

i've changed it up

for F E A D
to Bb D G C

that's sounds like it's going somewhere
it's got enough related 6ths and 7ths in each case to relate to the root
and then I can transition into more conventional 7ths

no I came to all this through looking into styles that used really cool sounding chords and that led to a DVD of urban gospel extreme that borrowed some forms from somehing they called neo-soul and that led to looking into r'n'b and Brian McKnight -- a long way from prog rock and an even longer way from Brit Invasion and surf rock I played way back when