Seven Systems: Adding Sixths and Extensions

Root C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B Chord Major Minor Diminished Augmented Major 7th Dominant 7th Minor 7th Half Diminished 7th Diminished 7th Suspended 2 Suspended 4 Major 6th Minor 6th

Formula

Spatial Degrees

C Major 7th

Spatial

Major triad with M7

Degrees

1 3 5 7

Symbols

CM7, Cmaj7

Active Formula

1 3 5 7

C Major 7th selected

Adding Sixths and Extensions

major and minor Triads so here’s our C major Triad our C major chord and we add the sixth scale degree that’s a C major sixth chord and if we have a Minor triad with the sixth scale degree that’s a C minor six chord these are the six chords so this is our first new chord from adding notes to our standard basic chords adding the sixth scale degree to major and minor Triads to create six chords and these are the symbols for the six chords if it just says C6 that’s a C major sixth chord and for the rest of the symbols it’s the same you have capital M in lowercase M you have a shortened version of the chord names and you have the triangle major sign and the minus minor sign next as far as adding notes to our basic chord we can add what are called extension nodes so our Triad scale degrees are one three five and our seventh chord scale degrees are one three five seven and we have different sharps or flats to those scale degrees depending on what type of chord it is now notice these are all odd numbers so every other number starting from one now we can continue from that seven to eight and keep going to nine ten eleven twelve and thirteen and we can extend our chord to include those odd numbers of 9 11 and 13. so we’re continuing going up odd numbers one three five seven nine eleven thirteen these are our extension notes this 9 11 and 13. we can add these extension notes to our standard basic chords suspended chords and six chords so for example with our major and minor Triads we can add the nine so here’s our C major chord with the nine that’s our C major add9 chord we can also have the C minor with the ninth scale degree that’s our C minor add nine chord you can also have the csus4 chord and add the ninth scale degree that gives you a c sus4 add 9 chord and you can also have your C major six chord with your ninth scale degree and now you could call this a C6 add 9 chord where we write add nine just like our last two chords but more commonly this chord is given a special symbol it’s written as C six slash nine so it’s like a c chord with a six and a nine so you write C six slash nine and we can also have that minor six chord with the nine and here too instead of writing C minor six add nine it’s more common to write C minor six slash nine so these are called six nine chords they have their own special symbol but generally speaking when a composer adds nine to a chord they’ll write add 9 after the chord same with adding the other extensions 11 and 13. they’ll write add 11 and add 13. okay so I just showed you examples of adding extensions to our Triads suspended chords and six chords now let’s add extensions to our seventh chords with seventh Chords it’s a little bit different say we have a C Major Seventh chord and then we add the ninth scale degree you don’t write C Major seven add nine instead you would write C major nine this is called a C major ninth chord when we add the ninth scale degree to seventh chords we get what are called ninth chords say we have our C minor seventh chord and we add the ninth scale degree this creates a C minor ninth chord we don’t write C minor seven add nine we write C minor 9. if we have a c dominant seventh chord at the ninth scale degree this creates a c dominant ninth chord we don’t write C7 add9 we write C9 so here we have our seventh chords and our seventh chord symbols from before when we add 9 to all these chords they become ninth chords and all the sevens become nines now let’s look at our dominant seventh chord again when we add the ninth scale degree it becomes a c dominant ninth chord so we would write C9 now when we add the nine and the eleven it becomes an 11th chord so this is a c dominant 11th chord and we write C eleven now what happens if we didn’t include the nine and we just had the eleven [Music] then it’s not an eleventh chord instead we would call it a C7 add 11 chord so it’s only an 11th chord if it includes both the 9 and the 11. foreign now when we add the 9 the 11 and the 13 we have a 13th chord so this is our C dominant thirteenth chord and we would write C13 it needs to include all the extensions that came before it to be a 13th chord now what if we just had the 13 then it would be a C7 add 13 chord we have the C7 where it’s all connected and then we’re adding the 13 on top [Music] now what happens if we have our C7 our nine we don’t play the 11 but we play the 13. [Music] well all of this is connected so that’s a C9 and so we would write C9 add 13. so this is a C9 add 13 chord [Music] and it’s the same with all of our other seventh chords so here’s our C Major seven our C major nine our C major 11 and our C major 13. and this is a C major 7 add 13. now you may have noticed something our first note of the major scale is one no is the eighth note they’re both C’s the rest of our scale degrees two three four five six and seven are the same unique notes as 9 10 11 12 13 and 14. so by playing one three five seven and nine eleven thirteen we actually cover the seven unique notes within a scale if we go up another odd number to 15 we’re back at C that’s why we don’t have a 15th chord we already have a c are one next we can add altered notes to our chords this is where we flat and sharp our extensions so for example we could take our dominant seventh chord one three five flat seven we could add the nine or how about a flat nine that’s called a c dominant seventh flat nine chord we’re altering the nine lowering the nine one key to make it a flat nine flat nine is an altered note another example is how about we play the Major Seventh chord with an eleven we can now alter the eleven raising it one key to make it a sharp 11. so these are examples of altered notes altering the extensions by sharping or flatting them let’s learn all the alteration possibilities so here’s our seventh chord structure and here are the extensions 9 11 and 13. now these are all the possible alterations we have flat 9 sharp 9 sharp 11 and flat 13. so just like our extensions we can add altered extensions to the chords we’ve learned there’s actually a special dominant seventh chord primarily used in jazz where you add all four of these altered extensions so it’s a C7 flat 9 sharp 9 sharp 11 flat 13 chord this chord is called a C7 alt chord and instead of writing all of that composers just write C7 alt this means a dominant seventh chord where you play some or all of the altered extensions it’s some are all because Jazz is an improvisational art form you improvise now also what are considered altered notes are the flat 5 and sharp five now here what note is our Fifth Scale degree well it’s a g and the flat 5 is a g flat and the sharp five is the G sharp notice that our sharp 11 and flat 13 are the same notes g flat and G sharp so flat 5 has the same letter name as sharp 11 and sharp 5 is the same letter name as flat 13. that’s why some people will also describe the C7 alt chord as a C7 chord with flat 5 sharp five flat 9 and sharp nine instead of all the altered extensions jazz is a very improvisational art form and from my experience the way they write and describe chord symbols can also be quite improvisational so in summary to seventh chords composers can add extensions altered extensions and sharp and flat the five chord symbols wise this is how I like to write Out chords with added extensions and alterations so we have our root so if we’re playing a C chord the root is C if we’re playing a G chord the root is G then we have our chord quality major minor diminished augmented Etc then we have a designation of a seventh ninth 11th or 13th chord and then in parentheses we have the added extensions and or alterations so here we have a C Major seven add an 11. so we’re adding an 11 extension now let’s alter that 11. so now we have a C Major seven sharp 11. notice we don’t write the word add with altered notes again chord symbol usage isn’t standardized so it’s possible you will see add sharp 11 somewhere ultimately it doesn’t matter as long as you understand what somebody is saying now as we’ve already learned if I play a C Major seven and then add the 9 11 and 13 we get a C major 13th chord now what if inside that c major 13 I want the 11 sharped [Music] then we’d write C major 13 Sharp 11. sharp 11 in parentheses is letting the reader know that the 11 within the c major 13 is sharped now what if I skip the 9 and just added the sharp 11 and 13. then I’d write C major 7 and the sharp 11 and 13 in parentheses like this some people instead of a comma will write a slash like this and you might see the numbers written on top of each other like this so you have the 13 and then the sharp 11 below it the larger numbers will always be written on the top so that’s everything a composer can add to the standard basic chords our Triads and seventh chords they can add the sixth scale degree to our Triads to create six chords extensions to our standard basic chords as well as altered notes to our standard basic chords then in addition to our standard basic chords we can also add extensions to our suspended chords and six chords okay our next system of thinking is omitting notes there are a