Infinite Fretboard

Many guitarists are familiar with the classic ii-V-I progression. Figure 1: ii-V-I It's a tried and true sequence of chords, but it can get a bit... vanilla. One way of spicing it up is borrowing the Vb9 chord from harmonic minor. Figure 2: ii-Vb9-I If you play Figure 2  on your guitar, you'll notice that the second chord is simply a fully diminished 7th chord. This is an easy way of voicing a G7-flat 9 chord on guitar without playing the root. D is the fifth, A-flat is the flat 9, B is the third, and F is the seventh. Playing this chord is as easy as raising the root of the vanilla V7 voicing. Don't forget that A-flat is the flat 9. Since a diminished 7th chord may be spelled with any of the four tones as the root, why can't we consider any of these four tones to be the flat 9? For instance, if F  is the flat 9, this is an E7 flat 9 chord. If B is the flat 9, this is a Bb7-flat 9. If D  is the flat 9, this is a Db7 flat 9. To take it a step farther...

The diminished, also known as the "Octatonic" scale is known for its symmetry which is achieved by a strict alternation of half-step, whole-step, half-step, whole-step etc. G diminished scale One of the many fascinating facts about the diminished scale is its eight tones can be organized into two fully diminished 7th chords, a half step away. The two diminished chords that comprise the octatonic scale On top of that, if we invert any diminished 7th chord, we get the exact same intervals of the original chord, which results as the same shape on guitar shifted up three frets. For example, the G diminished chord above becomes B-flat diminished. B-flat diminished 7th With these two facts in mind, it can be extrapolated that any octatonic scale may be harmonized with nothing but diminished chords, as such: Fig 4: Harmonized G Octatonic Scale Yet this scale hides much more than just diminished chords. It has minor 7th, dominant 7th, major 7 sus4 #11, an...

ii-V7-I (drop 2 and 3) I was practicing my major ii-V-I's (drop 2 and 3) as usual when I noticed something interesting... First of all, this is a standard progression that goes Dminor7 - G7 - CMajor7. How it normally sounds:  On a specific voicing, 1-3-7-5, of the minor-7 chord, it feels natural to go to a dominant flat-5 chord instead of the vanilla V7. ii-V7b5-I (drop 2 and 3) In the key of C, this would be D-F-C-A going to Db-F-B-G, as shown on the left. Accidentally playing this progression, I wasn't offended because it's a cool sound. Observe the chromatic descending line in the bass. Same progression, but with a V7b5: ii-V7b5-bVM7 As I resolved the dominant chord, my fingers, by their own agency, proceeded to play a Gb-Maj7 instead of CMaj7. Voiced Db-F-Bb-Gb, this chord is a tritone away from the tonic, but it doesn't sound bad at all. In fact, if I wasn't expecting to hear a C-Maj7, it'd be a completely no...

A triad is traditionally defined as a set of three notes that are stacked in thirds. By this definition, there are only four triads: Major, Minor, Diminished, and Augmented. If we include diminished thirds in these constructions, there are more possibilities, including Major-flat-5 (which is a half-diminished chord without a third). Recently I have been inspired to approach triads from a modal perspective, thanks to Rick Beato's video The HIDDEN CHORDS You Don't Know . Rick's list of diatonic triads includes Major, Minor, Diminished, Phrygian, Locrian, and Sus. As these are all derived from the major scale, there is no augmented chord. These chords each contain a root, second/third/fourth, and fifth: Major: 1-3-5 Minor: 1-b3-5 Diminished: 1-b3-b5 Phrygian: 1-b2-5 Locrian: 1-b2-b5 Sus: 1-2-5 or 1-4-5 You might notice that sus4 and sus2 are the same sonority. For example Gsus4 has the notes G-C-D, while Csus2 is the same tones spelled C-D-G. Similarly, the modal tr...

You might've read my previous article on common tone diminished chords (a secret technique to spice up your chord progressions) .  If not, click here to check it out!  The following is a continuation of that article. The year is 2018 and everyone is talking about the B-flat Major7 chord with a C in the bass. Is it a 9th chord in 1st inversion or a sus 13th chord? It's the 2k18 sound . Who cares! I'm more concerned about CESH. CESH is just a fancy acronym for Chromatic Embellishment of Static Harmony . You every read through a boring chart that is something like G7 for 4 bars, followed by C7 for 4 bars? CESH is a way of embellishing such a progression so that one doesn't fall asleep on the gig. While working on common tone diminished chords for my previous article, I realized that chords like these were an effective tool for incorporating CESH. Let's start with a G7 chord: Ex 1: G7 Boring, huh? There's a few different ways of making it more interes...

I was sightreading Giulio Regondi's 4th etude recently when this little chromatic passage caught my attention: In the dominant key (B-major), this excerpt showcases a very interesting romantic-style turnaround. In essence, it's just an embellishment of the dominant chord (F#7) as it resolves in the following measure. But Regondi's means of getting there are very hip. Observe how on the third beat, a fully-diminished chord resolves up to an F#7 in 2nd-inversion. That is a prime example of a common-tone diminished chord. This sound is achieved by lowering the 3rd, 5th, and 7th of a dominant chord by one semitone, while maintaining the root (hence the term "common-tone"). Regondi takes it a step further and proceeds to a B-diminished 7th chord before resolving to B-major. Notice how every note of the B-major chord in the 2nd measure is approached from a semitone below? (except for b which is the common tone) After analyzing this fragment of music, I wondere...