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Who wants to talk about how upper partials have changed their lives? I do!!!

And no, I don't want to hear your denturist stories. I'm talking about the other ones.

Anyone use these in all 12 keys? I'm just beginning to realize their potential just very recently.

I have a question for those that already do use them: How do you think about improvising over them? Do you assign one scale ie the half diminished scale, or a melodic locrian, or do you actually look at the notes in the upper partial and go from there?

Thoughts?

Go Sceptical! Now what do you mean by upper partials? Is that the same as extensions and "Upper Structure Triads"? (using Mark Levine's terminology).

Tell me how you use it. I know about it from Levine but I've not used it. The reason is that I have used alternate shapes than triads, but the concept is the same.

Talk about how it changed your life...

Hey Wiz, how far along have you gotten with DD? Sorry I haven't gotten the time to record. Dolphin is pretty long too so it's pretty hard to do a "Red Dot" recording without screwing up.

One thing that is the hardest with it is maintaining the form. Now that I haven't played it in awhile some parts of it got a little rusty.

Sceptical, you play Dolphin Dance? Want to share a version too?

Hey guys,

re partials: yes, upper structures! I've found a new love! How do I use them? I don't know yet. I've been using a number of them in the past thinking that 'theory ain't of no importance' and looky at me how creative I am, only to discover last night upon searching for a version of Infant Eyes, and finding it in Mark Levine's book, that what I read about upper structures must have sunk in a wee bit about 20 years ago and I adopted one or two of them in a few different keys.

But what I rediscovered yesterday for whatever reason became clearer to me about what I have been doing, but also that there were three more that I neglected to be using. I was mostly using the #4 upper structure and the minor #4, but only in probably 4 or 5 keys. I know realize how much I didn't know, and within the last day have changed my sound tremendously.

You talk about using shapes, and this is similar to that, but the amount of shapes that my hands fell into ie the #4 and minor #4 and sometimes the 6 weren't used across the board, so to speak because I probably wasn't conscious enough about what they were or how to use them. Now I'm working on getting movement between them with exercises like Mary had a little lamb completely using upper structures. It's really hard in most keys for me, because the shapes (as you say) aren't there yet.

What I've sadly realized is that the 48 shapes I might have been using (2 chord structures in two positions in 12 keys) is only one sixth or 1/12 (how do you spell 12th?) of what I could be doing. So, now I have some definite practice plans to get these shapes under my fingers. Then the next step is to be able to move them around in whole tones, thirds, etc. Fun stuff, but I think it's going to drive the family crazy.

And DD? I don't play it because it's a bad tune, and I'm far better than Henry Hancock (I think that's how u spel it. I ROCK! Ok. Sorry. I regressed to my misspent youth for a second. But no, I don't play it, but I'll look into it, and if I like it enough to take me away from the other tunes and concepts I'm playing with I'll post something.

Why don't you give a specific structure that you use (on one key)?

The thing about upper structures, at least as far as Levine uses them, it's primary for voicings. I don't know about you but unless I'm soloing, I'm using two handed voicings most of the time, so I can clearly define my extensions without having to worry too much about structures. If I have to play the melody as the top note, then there really is no opportunity to sneak in an upper structure.

Wiz started a thread sometime back about "shapes" and how you move diatonically within the scale. That specifically uses upper structures but undefined as to the shape (sort of make your own shape). That's partly where I experimented with the stuff in the Mary Had a Little Lamb shape. And partly it was already a shape I used.

So just to be clear, Levine's shapes are Triads. And if you read it closely, depending on where you start the triad, you get a certain chord quality and voicing. I haven't messed much with Levine's versions but anyone can really develop their preferred shapes without relying on Levine's shapes. It's trial and error finding your shapes.

One shape I use for example is an augmented triad. Another is a Tritone + Fourth.

Hey Sceptical, do you still play a lot of Jazz or you quit that a long time ago?

hey jazzwee, I was working through some transcriptions of DD, figuring out chords and such. It's still very raw right now, wouldn't sound too great. I'm looking at the chords to see what Herbie was thinking when he wrote it.


I've tried some experimenting with upper structures, mainly I think of them as an extension of the chord.

For example: G / F A C E , could be called G/ Fmaj7th, but really is a G7 with the 9th, 11th, 13th added on.

Same thing as a slash chord, just worded differently.

I picked up one chord I really like in DD, it's F/B, or basically F7 b5 b9, played with D on top as the melody note and you get a really cool dissonant sound.

I found another young jazz prodigy, she does a nice version of Dolphin Dance. It's 3rd on the myspace list.

What's more amazing is that she's blind, and also plays flute. Check out the video of one song where she plays flute and piano at the same time!!

http://www.myspace.com/rachelflowersmusic

hey for augmented triad do you mean something like C E G# B? And tritone and 4th, C F# B.... I use that sound alot, picked it up from Mr. Hancock himself.

A long time ago as in hours ago? No, I started long ago, but did it the Gyro way for a length of time, all the while I was gigging as a jazz player, but never really thought to put myself to the test again and reexamine what it is that I thought I knew. I do know quite a bit, but there's quite a bit more that I'm now getting a chance to look at with fresh eyes.

A bit of history about me: Like most pianists I started with classical lessons, did the levels (ARCT in Canada.)But from the beginning I always liked 'fooling around' on the piano and had some fake books of pop songs that my father had laying around for the organ. I learned enough about chords from the classical lessons to sound mediocre when I was playing from these lead sheets. Yes, I could play by ear, and enough so to get gigs and such, but I wasn't ever THAT great. I even took 3 or 4 lessons when I was 15 to learn how to play jazz. I lost interest because at the time I didn't realize that it was blues that I wanted to play. I really didn't like the music of Herbie, Keith, Miles, etc. So the jazz lessons didn't stick.

Got to university, studied classical piano and percussion, met a few amazing musicians. Started listening a bit more to jazz, picked up the Levine book but still improvising and developing my own sound, which in retrospect I could say sounded 'jazzish', but not really there.

Fast forward about ten years, moved cities, found lots of gigs, but mostly with singers and still really didn't look at theory too much more than picking stuff up along the way. Fast forward to this last year, got a new piano and was so enamoured with the sound that I started recording improvisations on it, but with chords and spacing to hear the sustain and overtones, and bass (which I'm still grappling with to like from day to day.) Fast forward to about a week ago, woke up again and realized I'd better get back to studying jazz because of the 12345 number pattern thing made me want to reexamine melody in the jazz context.

So there we be. Now I'm looking at upper structures again.

An example of something I'm playing, and had played before, but the 'shape didn't fit my fingers before is the A7b913 or reading from the bottom A, G, C#, F#, A#, C#. I played that one, but in two, three keys, but in all 12, and kind of forgot that I could do it elsewhere. Laziness I suppose.

And you're right, Levine's upper structures are based on triads over a tritone. I'm not sure if what you say about making your own shapes though falls under what appears to be an upper structure. With the shapes it may become hit and miss. I really have done the shapes for a long time, but I suppose that I always fell back the ones that I became comfortable with. This wouldn't have been such a bad thing if I never discovered that I'd missed a great deal of voicings, especially in the keys that kind of dictate certain shapes.

And your background guys? Not that you asked for mine...

Yes, they are two handed voicings, but there is no reason you can't use them as the support of the melody. Perhaps not on every eighth note, but perhaps on every beat. But what do you mean by clearly defining the extensions? If the melody note is the top of the extension as in the C# (see above post) going to a D do you see this as something other than an upper structure?

I find upper structures useful in all aspects of improvisation. Essentially all they are is subgroups of notes derived from a certain scale, so it is easy to use them any context whether doing single line impro, block chords or accompanying a melody.

For instance a couple of upper structure triads you could use over a D7 sharp 9 are Bb major triad, Ab major triad and B major triad. The first 2 of these are derived from the dimished whole tone scale (ie Eb melodic minor ascending) and the last from the diminished scale (half whole). So, for instance, if you had an Eb in the melody you could use either a B maj triad or Ab major triad in the RH (voiced with the Eb at the top) with the D7 sharp 9 shell voicing in the LH.
And when doing a single line impro using the different arpeggios give a different flavour.
I find these particular triads very useful for creating moving inside voices inside a single chord,. For instance if there is a bar of D7 sharp 9 then you could play in the RH the Bb triad on the first 2 beats and then move to the Ab triad for the 2nd 2 beats. This provides some harmonic interest in a static chord and using just the inner voices can add another level of beauty.

beeboss, although I don't use triads in a memorized way as upper structures, I think I do something similar but not thinking necessarily of a specific triad interval.

The similarity is my constant visual overlay of a diminished scale over any dominants. Then I find some intervallic pattern over it, rather than a scalar movement. In essence it turns out usually to be sort of triad shape, though not necessarily that exact interval (sometimes it turns out to be an augmented triad).

I've been working heavily on Chick Corea's Matrix the last few weeks, and Chick uses this kind of approach heavily in his dominants. Chick also has some interesting whole-tone shapes and then he weaves in and out from that back to diatonic tones. That's probably the inner voice movement you're talking about. His moves are rather unpredictable.

Of course the approach is different with minor 7 chords, where I typically will limit myself to diatonic shapes or quartal shapes. In major chords, I will do quartal shapes too or some #11 shape.

Neat stuff. I can't say I can do it comfortably in all keys though.

It least in the Levine context, you place the upper structure triad on top of the LH voicing. When I'm playing the head, there's sufficient time (since this is something one can do in advance and is not improvisation), you can already choose your specific extensions that you prefer and within the limits of available fingers. So there's no need there to think of upper structures.

I think the Levine upper structures were meant as quick comping voicings, that's why the specific use of an easily memorized triad shape. But those upper structures, as Beeboss says, are actually more relevant in a soloing setting since it gives you some visual for looking at possible lines.

So how do you use it? Voicings or soloing shape?

The beauty of the dimished scale is its symmetrical structure that makes the conception of the upper structure chords very easy to manage, any shape (chord or melodic) is immediately transposable in minor 3rds will work fine. This leads to a real lot of possible upper extentions.

Over a C7 for instance you can play ...
Eb major triad, A major triad, F sharp major triad
C minor triad, Eb m triad, F sharp m triad, A m triad
Eb7, F sharp 7, A7
Cmin7, F sharp min7, Amin7,
All of the above with b9 or sharp 9 additions
etc

This leads to an exceptional number of voicing possibilities and an exception number of possible juicy single note lines.

I don't think you can extract any augamented triads from the diminshed scale though, although you can find some in diminished whole tone scale and obviously theres a lot in the whole tone scale.

Beeboss, that is VERY EASY to remember for me. A lot easier than any Levine structure. I use a lot of diminished cycle shapes and I can add this one to my list. Thanks!

So to clarify for others, these triads create the following extensions:

For a C7:

Eb Triad = #9
F# Triad = #11 b9
A Triad = 13 #9

which are basically triads moved a minor 3rd apart and starting from the root. If you stay long on a C7 chord and comping, you can create moving voices while remaining on the chord.

You're right about augmented triad being in whole-tone when used in dominants. I was taught to use that in dominants and as a maj/min sound in Minor 7 chords. I never really worked out where it was derived from.

Spectical, I'll repeat my background here since this is a new thread...and to encourage everyone to do the same.

I've been studying jazz and piano for a little over 5 years so far. I've had a teacher 100% of the time during this period and have been with my latest teacher over 3 years. I'm been lucky to have a Jazz master as a teacher and it has really accelerated my development. Sometimes it got a little frustrating (like at the 3rd year of Jazz), as it felt like an impossibility. And now I realize that certain skills needed time to develop and when it clicks, things move VERY FAST. So, I'm at a pace of geometric improvement this year.

One usually gravitates to a teacher based on a desired style, and in my case it's been Modern Jazz. So that's my bias.

Now my main problem is that I don't have much of a setlist because I've always worked on more difficult tunes first and they take much more time. My teacher's idea of a "basic" tune is All the Things You Are. So bring on tunes like Dolphin Dance, Very Early, Windows, Stella, Invitation...but I'll need a leadsheet on A-Train and Satin Doll.

Right now, top development issues on the active list are: soloing on the LH, and being more in the pocket.

My main focus for the short run is Chick Corea (Matrix, Spain) and in some ways connects to McCoy Tyner after seeing Chick's intriguing use of quartals. So that's my Jazz story.

I have played Guitar for 40 years though so I'm not exactly new to music...

Augmented Triad arpeggio would only be the C E G#. For example, playing an Eb7, I will use an augmented triad arpeggio of Eb B G (this is played going down from Eb); Bb7 played Bb F D. Also on a minor 7th chord, let's say Fm7, I will play Ab E C (played going down -- same shape). These are the first three chords of ATTYA. When used on a minor chord, it gives a Maj/Min sound. On dominants it implies a whole-tone sound and a modernish 2-5-1 pattern.

Now the Tritone+Fourth interval, like C F# B (exactly) is a voicing interval I use and you move this around the diminished root cycle (minor third movements), starting with the 3rd of the dominant7. So the first voicing (E Ab Eb) will be a #9, next is #9, #11, next a 13, last is b9. These become alternate voicings for a C7.

This is pretty similar to what Beeboss was talking about, except it's just a different shape.

Ok everyone,

I'm questioning this shape concept now. I use(d) it all the time, especially with things like C F Bb, or the tritone E Bb Eb, as well as using other shapes too, such as as 2nd and a 5th or fourth ( C D G, or C D A) but what I neglected for much time was the real upper structures of a major or minor triad in the root and inverted positions. Once I started playing them consciously, yes they begin to appear as shapes rather than 'Im playing a D over C7 now'. But it took me the realization that the shapes I was choosing ala Chick or McCoy made me sound too much like them. This is perhaps why I don't always like listening to them--I find that I'm not hearing things that make me go wow.

So, if you play by shapes, do you also consider the shape between your thumbs? That is kind of where I've taken myself back to because of the upper structures need this consideration.

Whenever I just want to play without thinking too much I'll use the shapes, and I'll continue to sound a certain way. But when I try to include the upper structure theory I'm now eager to hear what comes next as I play.

sceptical, I'm not too reliant on the shapes myself because I actually think of what it is, i.e. #9, b9 #11, b9, etc.

Again it depends on what it is you're doing. Are you soloing with the structures or using them as voicings?

Depending on one's use, these could expose some areas to address. As comping voicings, they provide moving voices so one is not stuck to a plain vanilla rootless chord.

But when I solo, I've learned to rely on my ear a lot so these shapes become more of a vocabulary source, I find.

jazzwee, interesting use of the aug triad. I tend to think of them more as a Cmaj7 #5 chord. For dominant chords, I've worked out a way to think of the altered notes as it relates to the key, rather than the chord.
Actually, I've worked on that tritone + 4 shape enough so that when I play, my hands gravitate toward the shape without me thinking of the chord name. I just know the sound. Kind of like what Taylor Eigsti was talking about.

I find when improvising, I don't want to be thinking chord names and progression, but the sound that is coming out.
I tried playing Dolphin Dance in another key today, to get away from the preconceived chord voicings I was using in the normal key. Came up with some unusual sounds but it was fun.

btw, did you check out that young girl's version of DD?