You may be familiar with the modes of the major scale: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian. There is some overlap (the third and the sharp eleventh are in both the diminished and the whole tone scales).Īnother way to think about the altered scale’s construction is to think of it in terms of modes. The first half of the scale is the same as the diminished scale the second half of the scale is the same as the whole tone scale. Using the same logic, you can also think of the altered scale as a combination of the diminished scale and the whole tone scale. This leaves us with the root, the third, the flat seventh, both flat and sharp ninths, and both flat and sharp fifths (b5 is the same as #4/#11, #5 is the same as b13). In the altered scale, every note that isn’t the root, the third, or the seventh is altered. The diminished scale has altered ninths the whole tone scale has altered fifths. Any note that isn’t the root, the third, or the seventh can be altered.
The three essential notes that define any chord are the root, the third, and the seventh (dominant chord = root, major third, flat seventh). The altered scale is a dominant scale where all the non-defining chord tones are altered. There are a couple of ways to think about the construction of the altered scale. Unlike the diminished scale and the whole tone scale, the altered scale is not a symmetric scale, so we can’t simply think of it intervallically we have to figure out another way to analyze the scale. The altered scale is the most dissonant sound you can apply to the dominant chord without sounding wrong (technically, holding out a major seventh or a perfect fourth on a dominant chord may be more dissonant, but they’re also not functional (as more than passing tones) and not in the tradition, making them sound completely “wrong”).įor reference, the altered scale is also sometimes referred to as the altered dominant scale or the diminished whole tone scale. What if we combine the V7(#9) and the V7(#5) to get create even more tension? We get the V7(#9#5) chord or the V7alt. Although, chord substitutions are really just a different means to get to the same end.
You could use some common chord substitutions (tritone sub, minor third sub). There are also other ways to alter the dominant chord. The diminished scale alters the ninth the whole tone scale alters the fifth. We’ve learned a couple of the scales that correspond to the altered dominant chords. To create a more tense sounding chord we could alter the V7 chord to be a V7(#11), V7(b9), V7(#9), V7(#5), etc. It still creates tension because it feels like it needs to resolve to the I chord, but the tension is minimal. A V7 with no altered tones creates the least amount of tension. The more it is altered, the tenser it will sound. The dominant chord can be altered however you want. How do we accomplish this? I hinted at it in the past couple of articles I wrote on scales. In other words, the dominant chord is the “tension” and the tonic chord is the “release”. The dominant chord is often used as a platform for dissonance before it resolves to the consonant tonic chord. The most common place to use harmonic “tension and release” in music is on the V7-I resolution. For the specific purpose of this article, we’ll focus on harmonic “tension and release”. dissonance is the most effective way to develop harmonic “tension and release”. A few examples of variation, or polarities, that create “tension and release” are: loud vs. “Tension and release” can be applied to music melodically, harmonically, and rhythmically. It’s an approach to create interest in order to prevent a piece of music, or an improvised solo, from potential monotony to keep music from being boring. What this refers to is a method for developing variation in music. When we listen to, study, or discuss music from a compositional or improvisational standpoint, we frequently talk about a technique called “tension and release”.