Chords Over Chords?

[Funkstar De Luxe]

What the hell is going on in this sample. There is a continuous chord playing, with other chords stabbing over the top. What's it called, and how can I do it?
Also, naming these particular chords would help me a lot.

http://www.animarecordings.com/chord.mp3

[Jafo]

Superimposed triads, polychords, something like that. It's a neat way of extending tonal harmony -- or breaking from it.

You can do a lot of neat things with it. Just mix and match triads (or anything you like). Take a C Major chord (C-E-G). Add a C Major triad above, and it's C Major. Add an F Major (F-A-C), and you have F Major 9. Add an A minor triad (A-C-E) and you have A minor 7. Add an E minor triad (E-G-B) and you get C Major 9. Or you could do something interesting, by using triads with clashing notes. Perhaps a cross-mediant relationships -- try A Major and F Major (A-C#-E and F-A-C). Tritones are also good -- E Major (E-G#-B) and Bb Major (Bb-D-F); kinda icky, perhaps, but very colorful.

Extend to seventh chords if you like. Or to quartal harmony. Or whatever. You can be really exotic yet still tonal (if you wish).

[Basjoe]

Indeed this is exactly how players of the accordion instrument family extend what is otherwise a very small set of chords playable using buttons, ie. by playing more than one chord simultaneously "Chord combining". There are an astonishing number of usable combinations.

Basjoe

[Funkstar De Luxe]

Thanks, this has been a great help. However I can only really grasp the very basics as I am not exactly musically inclined (yet...).
Is there a guide, designed for morons, about superimposed triads?

[JumpingJackFlash]

Thanks, this has been a great help. However I can only really grasp the very basics as I am not exactly musically inclined (yet...).
Is there a guide, designed for morons, about superimposed triads?

Well, as a quick explanation along the lines of what Jafo was saying:

A triad is the simplest chord you can get. - It is based on thirds and consists of a root note, and a third and fifth above it. (See my Introduction to Music Theory for more details, and/or use my Glossary).

You can extend that triad by adding additional notes. - Typically a seventh (above the root) is added, then possibly a ninth. - These keep adding more thirds onto the basic triad. (Sometimes major thirds, sometimes minor thirds).

So, a C major triad is: C-E-G
If we add a diatonic seventh on top, it becomes: C-E-G-B
If we add a diatonic ninth on top, it becomes: C-E-G-B-D

In this example, the sevenths and ninths are diatonic. - That means, they all belong to the key of C major. However, we could change the sevenths to produce Dominant Sevenths, Major Sevenths, Minor Sevenths, etc. (See my post on Scales, Modes and Chords for more details).

Now. The thing is, that notes occur in many different chords. Take the note C for example. It occurs in:
C major (as the root): C-E-G
C minor (as the root): C-Eb-G
A minor (as the third): A-C-E
F major (as the fifth): F-A-C
F minor (as the fifth): F-Ab-C
D7 (as the seventh): D-F#-A-C
Dmin7 (as the seventh): D-F-A-C

and many more too. - Notice also that two or more notes occur together in different chords. So, you had a C and an A for example, it could be in Am, F, D7 and so on.

In other words, if I have the notes C and A, I can add a F to make it F major (F-A-C). - I could leave it there, or I could add in a D, to make in Dmin7 (D-F-A-C). I can keep going like that, adding in more notes. - The name of the chord changes, but it still has the same notes in.

Another way to think of it is to look at Dmin7: D-F-A-C. - This has both a D minor triad in (D-F-A), and an F major triad in (F-A-C). - Those two triads are therefore superimposed, producing a new chord which has characteristics similar to both.

[Sascha Franck]

In the example, the underlying chord changes as well, so it's not really a good example at all.

[superddman]

Interesting post.

Could somebody provide some samples of chords over chords, specifying what notes were used?

[jancivil]

Thanks, this has been a great help. However I can only really grasp the very basics as I am not exactly musically inclined (yet...).
Is there a guide, designed for morons, about superimposed triads?

without offering a lot of potentially confusing particulars, the closer to the key of the original chord, the less of a perceived discord.

in terms of cycle of fifths, the fifth above:

C E G /(G) B D, is one of the safest "polychord" effects. The 'relative minor' of C major is so nearly the same sonority, A minor over C tends to be called C add 6 (note the interval) or A minor 7. A C E G, or C G A E, etc.

at the other end of the spectrum, a 'distant' relationship such as C# over a C, is going to be relatively harsh.

[jancivil]

Interesting post.

Could somebody provide some samples of chords over chords, specifying what notes were used?

C E G B, stacked thirds diatonically. Keep going: D F# A. (I said F# rather than F natural as it accords to harmonic principles better, ie., the F# or something very close to it is part of the harmonic series based on fundamental "C")

what that boils down to if you want to think of it as separately movable blocks is:

C major + G major + D major.

You're going around a circle of perfect fifths.

each of these has a relative minor: Am, Em, Bm. (That C E G / B D F# is a C major + a B minor, as well as being a CM7 9 #11; and it contains an E minor 7 as well.)

so, you can move these chords around over a static C G drone let's say, and you have some color.

You can go around the other direction - the above examples are found in the fifths circle by 'ascending' - now descending by P fifths:

C E G, with F A C and/or D F A over it. That will tend to seem like F is the basic chord in many cases, which F A C E G would be the same as C E G B D transposed. The next step though begins to reveal another type of color: Bb D F over C; try leaving out the third of the 'root' chord, to avoid a lot of discords (another thing which accords to the harmonic series, as a fundamental is already generating that third, so things are perceived very readily as clashes with that note* when you start adding tones):

C G Bb D F. which as a unitary sonority is called C 7 9 11, or sometimes C 9 sus 4; as it replaces the third with that fourth (aka 11th, in the next octave).

etc...


(*: an overdriven amplified guitar, just this root and P 5th, will sound like a major chord, that's the harmonic series working; it's called "5th harmonic" distortion, as it's the fifth partial of the series.)