- Hi.
Well in the next few minutes
we're just going to explore
this little area, extended chords.
Well, before we talk
about extended chords,
we just need to be sure
that we're happy about the basic chords
that we're thinking about extending.
So what I've written on the
board here are the basic chords
in the key of C major.
Now how have I done this?
Just to recap,
we've got a scale of C
major at the bottom here,
C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.
And to form our basic chords,
we put a third and a fifth
above each of those bottom notes.
So in other words, C is here.
So what's the third note up from C?
Well, C is number one, D is
number two, E is number three,
F is number four, G is number five.
So I'm taking one, three, five, C, E, G,
and that gives me chord I.
I do exactly the same
hereby going D, F, A.
And then I go E, G, B,
F, A, C,
G, B, D,
and so on up all these chords.
And when I get here, I'm
actually back at chord I
because I'm using C, E, G.
I just happen to be in a different octave.
So those are the basic chords
that you can find in any key.
And some people have been in touch with me
about chords in the past and they said,
"Well, why don't you have, for example,
an F-sharp in this chord here?"
Well, I don't do that because
I'm in the key of C major
and in C major, there
are no sharps, no flats.
So we just follow the key signature.
So if you had a B-flat
in the key signature,
because you were in the key of F,
every time you came across
a B in one of these chords,
it would be a B-flat because
you'd be in the key of F.
But if you're in the key
of C, no sharps, no flats.
So don't use any in any of the chords.
And possibly if you're a
guitarist or a jazz musician
instead of these Roman numerals,
you might know this as a chord of C,
this is a D minor chord,
E minor chord, an F chord,
a G chord, and A minor
chord, a B diminished chord.
And obviously, we're
coming back to a C chord
because that's how they work out.
And you'll notice a mixture
of major and minor chords
and one diminished chord.
That's how it goes.
Now, if I want to extend these chords,
I could add to these basic chords,
and you may have heard people
talk about seventh chords.
You may be very happy about that
or you may have never quite been sure
what we mean by a seventh chord.
Well, if I've got what we call
a root, which is number one,
a third and a fifth, all I
need to do is add the seventh.
So if I've got chord I or a chord of C,
then it's C, E, G, one, three, five
and I add a seventh.
And you can hear that
that seventh is a rather
nice addition to the chord.
It makes it a bit richer, doesn't it?
I can do that on every chord
just by adding the seventh
above the root of every single chord.
And that gives me an extension.
So the basic chords sound like this,
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII
back to I,
put a seventh on the top, I7, II7, III7,
IV7, V7, VI7, VII7,
back to I7.
So you can hear, they're
kind of really rich chords.
If you go back to the Baroque time's,
sort of between 1600 and 1750,
they were already using the seventh chords
and they really liked
the seventh chord on V
and they really liked
the seventh chord on II
and they sometimes used
other seventh chords.
As we went on into later music,
we found these seventh chords
being used more and more.
Certainly, by the 19th century,
we were finding lots of seventh chords.
And then in the 20th century,
they've come into their own,
particularly in certain
styles, jazz being one of them.
So those would give us seventh chords.
Now you could extend it even further
and say, well, let's have a ninth chord.
So, if I add this,
can you see how this is now
giving me a ninth chord?
So life gets yet more exciting still.
So now I've got this ninth chords.
So here's the chord I with
a seventh and a ninth,
so there's a I9, II9, III9,
IV9, V9, VI9, VII9,
and back to I9 again.
And I could go further with this.
So I could say, well what
about having an eleventh,
you know, why not?
Let's go for it.
So there's the eleventh's now
piling on top of these things.
So the chords are looking
a bit kind of congested now
by the time you get to eleventh chords,
you don't necessarily have
to have every single note
of the chord, you can be a bit selective.
But here is I11, II11, III11, IV11, V11,
VI11, VII11, back to I11.
So they're quite interesting
chords, aren't they?
You can go on to do thirteenth's as well.
How about this?
So let's go a step further.
So we've got, I don't know
how many notes in a chord now,
which is probably starting
to freak a few people out.
But there we are.
That will take us up to
thirteenth's, as I say,
by the time you get to thirteenth's
you don't need all of those notes
because it's a bit of a pile up of notes.
If you take V13 for example,
there's lots of notes there, aren't there?
So that becomes a little bit congested.
If I bring it down an octave.
So you could have a root,
you could have a third,
you could have a seventh
and you could have an eleventh.
So there is a V13,
that's just got the root,
the third, the seventh, and the eleventh
and that's enough to qualify as a V13.
Nice chord, isn't it?
So if you hear that
chord may be progressing
onto a chord I, it's richer as a V13,
than it is just as a five,
could be a V7,
but a V13.
So there we are.
Lots more to say about that,
but there's an introduction
to extended cords.
Enjoy.
