Audiotuts+ Updates - Getting to Know Altered Chords Part 1: Altered V

Getting to Know Altered Chords Part 1: Altered V

Posted: 12 Oct 2010 01:00 AM PDT

We always get a lot of comments when we ask about music theory tuts. Obviously a lot of you are interested! Here’s a new series of harmony theory tuts from Ryan Leach, that not only shows you how to create more interesting chords, but also explains how and why.

In this series we will learn about altered chords and how we can use them to add harmonic interest to our music. Part 1 of the series will begin with the altered V chord.

What is an Altered Chord?

An altered chord is a diatonic triad or seventh chord that has had one or more pitches lowered or raised by a half step. By lowering or raising (altering) the chord tone you change the character and color of the chord. Depending on what pitches you change, you can even change its function.

Why Use Them?

One of the main reasons to use altered chords is for color and interest. If you have been writing music for some time eventually you will come to a point where the diatonic chords of a given key start to sound very vanilla and bland. Using altered chords is a way to spice up your harmony while still staying within the realm of a functional diatonic progression.

Another reason to use an altered chord could be for dramatic effect, such as an increase in tension or surprise. If a piece is in the key of C and the listener is expecting to hear F, but instead they hear the altered Fm, they could be caught off guard and (hopefully pleasantly) surprised by this alteration.

The Altered Chord Series

In order to have enough space to take an in-depth look at altered chords, this tutorial will be broken down into a seven part series. There will be one tutorial for each of the seven chords of the diatonic major key.

Altered V and V7

The altered V chord is the diatonic V or V7 chord with one or more pitches lowered or raised by a half step.

The V chord usually resolves to I or a substitute of I (such as vi or iii). This is true for an altered V as well. In the key of C this means that an altered G chord will usually resolve to a C or to Am or Em. I say usually, but of course this is not always the case.

Just to get it in your ears, here is a simple I V7 I progression, using a version of V7 that has not been altered:

Download audio file (1_I_V7_I.mp3)

V is one of the most common chords to alter because generally the V chord, the dominant, is a point of high tension. Altering the chord can make it more colorful or it can even heighten this tension more and make the resolution to I increasingly welcome.

Common Alterations of V:

V+7
V7b5
Vm
Vm7b5
#Vº7

V with an Altered 9th

V7b9
V7#9

Altering Each Chord Tone

As mentioned, a chord is “altered” by lowering or raising one or more chord tone by a half step. Since there are four pitches in a 7th chord (1 3 5 7), that gives us four choices for tones to alter.

We’ll go through systematically and examine the results of altering each tone of the chord.

Altering the Fifth

V+

Taking V (of V7) and raising the fifth of the chord to create V+ is an often used way to alter the V chord. The augmented V will probably be a familiar sounding chord to you.

Download audio file (2_I_V_7_I.mp3)

You may have heard it as the opening of The Beatles’ “Oh Darling”:

Download audio file (3_OhDarling.mp3)

The augmented fifth of the chord, in the case of E+ a raised B natural up to C natural (or technically B sharp), adds a mysterious and tense color to the dominant chord.

V+7 is also a common occurrence in many jazz standards, such as in “All the Things You Are”. Here the C+7 takes us out of the B section and to the repeat of the A section:

Download audio file (4_AllTheThings.mp3)

V7b5

Taking the opposite approach, you can lower the fifth to create a V7b5 chord.

Download audio file (5_I_V7b5_I.mp3)

V7b5 is a less commonly used chord than V+7. It has a softer and less aggressive sound. Notice that the b5 of V is the same as b9 of the key, so this tone has a very strong tendency to resolve down to the root of the key (Db down to C in the example above).

Altering the Third

Vm

The most natural way to change the third of the V chord would be to change it from a major third to a minor third, thus giving us the chord Vm.

The Vm chord has a soft but somewhat unexpected sound. Our ears are so used to the major V that the minor third can sound surprisingly fresh for just a single half step adjustment.

Download audio file (6_I_Vm_I.mp3)

The Coldplay song “Clocks” uses Vm as the second chord of the song’s main motif:

Download audio file (7_Clocks.mp3)

Pay attention to how the Db of the Bbm chord feels just a tad out of place.

Vm7b5

Vm7b5 is an unusual sounding chord, but you can still get an interesting sound by using it in place of the regular V7. It has a certain sorrowful quality to it:

Download audio file (8_I_Vm7b5_I.mp3)

Usually it sounds more like the II as part of a II-V-I progression in minor than it does a V chord of the key:

Download audio file (9_Vm7b5asII.mp3)

V7sus4

If we raise the third instead of lowering it we end up with a sus4 chord. The sus4 has a very open and bright sound:

Download audio file (10_I_V7sus4_I.mp3)

Usually it will resolve down to V7:

Download audio file (11_sus4resolves.mp3)

Altering the Seventh

Vmaj7

Vmaj7, borrowed from the parallel Lydian mode, can be a very bright and positive feeling chord.

Download audio file (12_I_Vmaj7_i.mp3)

The main thing you have to be careful of is that Vmaj7 doesn’t end up sounding like Imaj7. In particular The progression I Vmaj7 I can sound more like IV Imaj7 IV.

Altering the Root

If we lower the root of the chord we get a bV chord. This is better dealt with as #IV so we will look at it in the tutorial on altered IV chords.

#Vº7

The #Vº7 chord leads most naturally into VIm:

Download audio file (13_I_Vdim7_vi.mp3)

The #V has a very strong tendency to keep pushing upwards into the sixth tone of the scale.

Altering the 9th

If you go beyond the four chord tones of a seventh chord and begin to add tensions, the first tension you’ll hit upon is the ninth.

The natural ninth sounds very warm:

Download audio file (14_E7_E9.mp3)

Just like the other chord tones, the ninth can be altered and be raised or lowered by a half step. The resulting b9 and #9 can add an extra degree of dissonance and tension to the dominant chord, giving it a sharper edge.

V7b9

The interval of a b9 is considered extremely dissonant and should only be used for a point of very high tension and then resolved. Often resolves to a minor chord.

The b9 of the V chord is the b6 of the key, which means it has a very strong tendency to want to resolve down into the 5 of the key (eg. F natural down to E in the key of A).

Download audio file (15_A_E7b9_A.mp3)

V7#9

The #9 is famously known as the “Jimi Hendrix” chord because he made such great use of it:

Download audio file (16_E7sh9.mp3)

To my ear the #9 has less of a “pull” to resolve into any particular tone (either the natural 9 or major 3). Instead it is more of a color than a tension that yearns to be resolved.

Conclusion

I hope this introduction to altered chords has been useful for you and that you can begin to put them to use.

The main points to remember:

Altered chords can add a lot of color interest to an otherwise typical diatonic progression
You should think of the alterations as spices and use them on one or two occasional chords as opposed to an entire progression.
Altered chords are easy to create, you just lower or raise a chord tone by a half step.
The altered tones will often have a tendency to resolve in a certain direction and will sound best when they do.

Please leave your comments and questions below and we will discuss them in the upcoming parts of the altered chord series.

Author Interview: Meet Ryan Leach

Posted: 11 Oct 2010 05:00 PM PDT

We have some amazing authors at Audiotuts+. Besides being incredibly talented at making and producing music, they've made the choice to share their knowledge with the rest of us. And that's not an easy thing to do – they take hours out of their busy days and nights to sit down and write step-by-step tutorials so that we can learn to do what they do.

We thought a lot of you might be curious to find out more about them. What do they do? What have they accomplished? What do they drink? So we'll take some time over the next weeks and months to pull back the curtain and let you see. Today we meet Ryan Leach.

What do you do professionally when you’re not writing for Audiotuts+?

I mainly work as a film and TV composer with a particular emphasis on feature films. I worked as a composer’s assistant for several years after first moving to LA and a few years ago branched off to work independently.

I tend to become very interested and involved in one specific focus for a short period of time, and then am itching to move on to something completely fresh and new. Scoring in feature films is the perfect gig for me because I can become intensely involved and devoted to a particular project, and then a few months later the project wraps and I move on to a completely different score with a fresh perspective. It keeps the job consistently interesting and rewarding.

I also run Short Order Strings with my wife Lydia Veilleux. SOS keeps me very busy writing string arrangements for pop, rock and country artists around the world. It’s a lot of fun to get to work with so many different artists on a regular basis, but it has also done absolute wonders for my skills as an arranger for strings.

Tell us about your studio.

I have a relatively simple setup. The heart of the studio is a Mac Pro which I try to dedicate to the music work, while using a laptop on a separate end of the desk for everything else. In theory there is a separation of music and non-music work, but in reality I tend to use them both for either purpose quite often.

I regularly record Lydia when we do violin and viola sessions for Short Order Strings. The room is treated with Auralex acoustic foam and lately we’ve been using a Rhode NT-1a which has given us a much more present string sound than other mics we’ve tried up to this point.

My audio interface is a MOTU 828mkii which also doubles as a mic pre, a pair of KRK Rokit monitors and a Mackie Big Knob to interface between the two. Although it’s not an entirely necessary piece of gear, the Big Knob is such an easy and straightforward way to control the level of the mains and headphones that I love having it within hands reach. It’s much easier to adjust monitoring level with a big turn than on a tiny knob from the 828, or even a software alternative.

I use Logic as my main sequencer with a variety of plug-ins and software instruments. Lately I’ve been most impressed with LA Scoring Strings and Wallander Instruments for orchestral work, and Native Instruments’ Komplete to take care of a lot of the rest.

I don’t know all of the instruments and plug-ins I use completely inside out, but I do have a very in-depth knowledge of working in Logic. The way I see it, you can learn about the details of the plug-ins on an as-needed basis, but if you're using the DAW day in and day out you had better be an expert if you expect to produce professional results in a timely manner.

It’s no exaggeration when I tell aspiring film composers to read the entire Logic manual from start to finish.

Have you had any interesting projects this year?

My biggest project this year has been a feature film called Skinning. It’s a Serbian film, directed by Stevan Filipovic, about a high school math whiz who gets wrapped up in the ugly world of skinheads and eventually climbs the ranks to become their leader. The film deals with a lot of Serbian political and social issues and we’re very excited to see how the film is received after the Serbian premiere in early October.

Stevan and I had a lot of fun developing the score for the film. One of my favorite aspects is the theme development for the main character, Novica. We established two separate themes for his character. There is the theme associated with the innocent high school kid Novica, and then a second theme for Skinhead Novica after he has turned to the dark side. As Novica’s character transforms from good to evil, his music slowly morphs from the first theme into the other. You don’t hear the full “dark side” theme until he has fully emerged as a skinhead, but you do hear hints of it surfacing as the score evolves.

I also had the pleasure of working again with woodwind soloist Sandro Friedrich, who played duduk, ney and zurna on the score. I’ve worked with Sandro on several other projects and his mastery of ethnic instruments always adds so much life to the music!

Tell us about some of your biggest audio-related successes.

One of my most rewarding experiences in the audio world was engineering in the presence of Hans Zimmer and Jerry Seinfeld. It was a session for the Bee Movie score and I was recording my boss/mentor Michael A. Levine as he tracked guitar. In truth I recorded only a very small amount of material (perhaps a minute of music at most), but the adrenaline rush from those giants of the entertainment industry sitting a few feet behind me has yet to wear off!