Between major and minor

[Andreas]

So a minor chord = a minor third topped with a major one, and a major chord = a major third topped with a minor one. There is a note between a minor third and a major third (for a D chord, this would be a sharp F, halfway to F#).

Has anyone tried this chord? It'd be a bend up on an MD with a 1+ fret. What does it sound like to you?

[WaterPig Master]

Microtonal chords? That's something I've never thought about before. I imagine that it would sound rather… out of tune!

Cheers,
Barnaby

[mrchips]

What the difference between a major and minor chord is the middle mote using the dictionary definitional from low to high note. Now consider that a key is essentially the same thing as a diatonic fretted instrument tuned open to the first note of a key.

With the key of D the note sequence will be D E F-sharp A B C-sharp and the D of the next octave. With the above in mind the root, or first, chord by the dictionary definition will be the D F-sharp and A. Often the notes wont be in the same low to high name in pitch order. As an example If you do a D major the 2 most common ways are all strings open and only fretting the high D on the second fret. In the first case you dont have that F-sharp. as you have a low and high D and a mid range A. The F-sharp is totally missing resulting in a partial chord that will work both as a major OR minor chord. It wont sound exactly right for either but its close enough to work. In the second case you have low to high D A F-sharp. Thats what is known as a chord inversion because the note pitches dont run low to high as in the definnation above. Never the less its still a full 3 note chord.

What makes a major or minor chord starting on the same note name is the middle note. A D major is D F-sharp A and the D minor is D F A. If you had a 1 1/2 fret, roughly half way between the 1st and second fret, that would be the F. In other words to go from a major to a minor just flat the middle note, To go from a minor to a major just sharp the middle note. If you had all the frets like on a guitar to flat a note you just back up a fret and to sharp a note just go up a fret. The problem is with most dulcimers is they dont have all the frets and most of the time you cant sharp or flat a note. Therefore often you have to totally drop out the middle note to get something that will work. You will always have to drop out at least one of the 2 middle notes with 7th chords too as you have only 3 strings so its impossible to do a 4 note chord.

A trick to find the notes you need for a chord if you dont know them is to put your finger on a string at the low note, the second fret from there going up scale is the second note. Go up 2 more frets and that's the last note. Of course it required you know what notes are on what fret in the key you are using, a simple matter to figure out with a tuner. Once you have the note names you will need to find the fingers positions needed to get that chord. Some will be impossible, some will be doable, but tough, and at least one will be easy to do.

[WaterPig Master]

A minor addition to Mr Chip's post (though neither actually have much to do with the original post!): A chord comprising just the fundamental and dominant, i.e. 1st and 5th, root and 5th, is known as a 'power chord'. Apparently they're often used by metal players — I would suspect this is because 'fuller' chords can sound horribly mushy when distorted, whereas simple intervals distort nicely. I must say, when you're using as much distortion as metal players do, I'm surprised they still care enough about the sound to use power chords instead of busier ones

Cheers,
Barnaby

[rendesvous1840]

In general, the use of D and Dm in a song played in the key of D major (Ionian) is a rarity. It sometimes happens that the IV chord will drop from major to minor, but rarely the I and almost never the V chord. I can think of a few examples in swing and jazz based music, but I can't think of a single example in traditional folk music. South Of The Border is one song where the IV (major) drops to the iv (minor). My jazz teacher considered these as short term key changes.
However, I don't think this is what Andreas is referring to. You are asking about micro tones, that is pitches between two notes where no western note actually exists? We bend strings to get these on some occasions, fretless players can bend or slide up or down to the micro tone. The idea of these is to add tension to the music. The micro tone clashes with the other notes in the chord, and creates tension. We resolve the tension by raising or lowering the micro tone back to a note in the chord or scale. Musicians have been doing this for a long time. Some call it chocking, smearing, bending, and probably a few other names, depending who we are asking. Banjo players have done this for as long as recordings have existed, blues guitarists were using this technique before electric guitars existed, and players of the one string Diddly Bow before that. I expect it existed centuries before anyone thought to write it down. Beginning violinists are taught to use vibrato to help mask their errors in placing their fingers on the strings. Essential, they use a constantly shifting flat to sharp series of pitch changes to cover the possibility that their note is actually a little flat or sharp. Used in a chord, it may be more tension than we really want, but as a single note over normal chords, it's very common. Here's a lesson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T-DjrQ6r8Q
Paul

[folkfan]

Arabic??????????

[mrchips]

The term "music" means many thing to many people as its not a fixed non-changing thing. There are many scales world wide where scale means a sequence of notes. Western music, the music most people in about half of the world accept as normal is based on the concept of 12 specific notes to each octave.

In a simplified history of music a few centuries back the earliest music instrument found so far was in a cave in Europe was most of a flute made from a bone. The holes in it were spaced to give a pentatonic or 6 note scale. A large majority of the music these days is actually a pentatonic scale. Later the scale was expanded to 8 notes. Now what notes by today's definition you get just depends on where in the pitch range you start that scale. This is where the concept of modes originated as some way of getting everybody playing and singing the same notes as far as pitch goes. Consider ANY form of sound recording didnt exist before about 100 years back. So you had only 2 ways to learn a tune, by ear or off paper. So sheet music was invented as a way to define the sound of a tune. Today you will still use one or both ways to learn a tune but the difference is you DO NOT necessarily need to go somewhere to hear music. Just pop in a CD or turn on the mp3 player. Over the years each change to music has incorporated the older forms. Today an octave is a series of 12 notes defined as a specific frequencies.

You will almost never hear any music that actually uses all 12 notes in a tune but that doesn't mean it dont exist. Most music today uses only 8 notes out of the 12 but there are a large number of tunes using only 6 notes. Amazing grace is most likely the best known 6 note tune. Count up the note names sometime. Today modes still exist and are used. What we call a major and minor key are actually 2 of the modes that are a sequence of 8 notes. The only difference between a major or minor key is HOW you work out the scale from the 12 notes. A typical diatonic fretted instrument selects the notes automatically for the major key for whatever the string is tuned to. Its exactly the same pattern you see in he white keys on a keyboard. The black keys are the "missing" notes in the 12 note sequence. A minor key uses almost the same pattern with a small change. Notice there is 2 wide spaces on a dulcimer after the nut and winds up with a narrow space (assuming you have the 6+ fret) at the octave shift. That is a major key. A minor key starts with just 1 wide space and winds up wit a wide space before the octave shift. In essence what you do is move the first wide space from the start to the end of the octave.

With a dulcimer tuned open DAd its in D major. Now capo it at the first fret and you have E minor and the scale goes one note higher than the next D, the E. Notice what happens, that wide space removed from the start winds up just AFTER the 7th fret. By the way the same thing works on a fully chromatic MD or guitar too but you have far more possibility for keys using a capo.

That being said how you work out the notes for a chord is exactly the same. Start on a note and just skip every other note until you have all 3 notes you need. Its the same thing as defining a chord by steps but its far more graphic if the concept of interviels isn't sinking in.. There is loads of stuff on the net that goes into great detail on chords such as chord progressions and so on if you're interested.

rendesvous1840 is right in how to use chords to set a feeling to a tune. If you want a typical feel good happy tune then just stick to the first 4th and 5th chords. If you want something a bit on the sad side then use some of the other chords. You will find a lot of this in many "church" songs. If you can read music to a minimal degree check out most any hymnal. The metal heads often use 2 notes side by side as a form of chord to make you feel edgy. Music is loaded with all sorts of things like that so take some time break free from being confined by music theory. Music theory should NEVER be seen as some set of absolute rules, but more like how modern music works or as a starting point in making music.

[WaterPig Master]

Music theory should NEVER be seen as some set of absolute rules, but more like how modern music works or as a starting point in making music.

I've always seen it as one of those 'You need to know the rules so you can break them properly' things

Cheers,
Barnaby

[mrchips]

AHH--- Somebody with a REAL understing of theory ---

[Andreas]

Rendezvous1840 is closest to what i mean - make a three note chord with two equal intervals up to the fifth - so (in D) D - a quarter note over F - A. Neither of the equal intervals is either major or minor. What does this chord sound like to you?

Even more generally, are there extra happy chords? Extra sad chords? Neutral chords? Are other emotions expressable? With what chords, or perhaps with what chord motion?

From a windy, early warmth Sweden -

Andreas

[mrchips]

Its a D minor.... actually whats known as a D minor inversion.

Dictionary definition runs from LOW note name to HIGH note name. The definition nearly anyone short of a music masters degree --- ANY order pitch wise of the same note names. Thats because on nearly any instrument doing a chord in low to high order will be either impossible because of finger reach or very difficult to do. In pitch order D F Sharp A in any other order is a cord inversion, same note names in a different pitch order.

Simple way to deal with chords in general.. Just start on a note of the key you are in. Skip the next note, etc across a 5 note spread you get the chord notes in dictionary order. If you cant do that then just switch around the pitch order you play the notes.

Minor chords.. EXACT same note names with a minor change -- flat the middle note a half step and you have a minor. On a guitar grab a 3 note D chord in any way you want. Now slide the finger on the F sharp back one fret... D major to D minor ---- on a keyboard its the same deal just use the key to the left and ignore the color. no thinking required...

[rendesvous1840]

Not the question at all. What Andreas is asking is if anyone has split the intervals between the root and third and third and fifth evenly, so the third is actually between the second and third. In D, this would be a true D, and a true A, but the third would actually be in between F and F#, not flat enough for Dm, not sharp enough for D major. The usual interval between the root and third for a major is 2 tones, and 1 1/2 tones between the third and the fifth. When a minor chord is formed, the intervals are reversed. His question is, what if we split the two intervals exactly even, 2 1/4 tones between the root and third, and 2 1/4 tones between the third and fifth. What we get is a chord with a lot of tension built in. Jazz players often try to reach the limits of how much tension they can put into a solo, and still resolve that tension. You have to release the tension, it's like watching a movie from the edge of your seat. If the movie doesn't relax the tension, we fall out of our seats! String musicians do this intentionally by bending a string to a point in between two notes. I believe some jazz musicians have experimented with this much more extensively than folk musicians, but as I said above, bent strings are a common improvisational technique in folk music and blues. Here's a lot more info than I ever knew on the subject of quarter tones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtonal_music Also, here: http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2011/1 ... -with.html
Start about halfway down the right side of the page,where you find this line "“Bob Flanigan and Don and Ross Barbour are cousins..." The topic above is related, but this is where the quarter tones are really discussed.
Paul