On Apr 18, 2005, at 2:29 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:
On 18 Apr 2005, at 8:48 AM, Christopher Smith wrote:
For jazz things get hairy, as tritone substitute dominant chords should be correctly spelled as if they were augmented sixth chords, e.g., in the key of C a Db7 chord would be spelled Db, F, Ab, B (not Cb). Many jazz musicians freely use enharmonic spellings, which means that those big chords haven't a chance in heck of ever being tuned properly.
Wow, do you really follow that rule consistently? I mean, in the key of Db, would you spell the bII7 chord D-F#-A-B#?
No, because to be painfully correctly spelled, it would be an Ebb7, which would include the diatonic leading tone spelled as C. Respellings are to help reading, not to hinder it.
I had mentioned earlier in the post that I respell the entire chord when too many double flats or double sharps cloud the reading in large key signatures, but if I were come across your example, I would make a considered exception to spell it D-F#-A-C most likely.
(grin) Leave it to you to poke holes in my pronouncements. It's good, it keeps me on my toes.
But back at you, in the key of C would YOU spell the bII7 chord as Db-F-Ab-Cb when there is a perfectly good and functional leading tone B in the key signature?
Because if I had to read a chart that used that spelling, I'd probably want to murder you. What about half-step-above approach chords built on other scale degrees, i.e., bIII7 to II, bVI7 to V, etc etc etc???
They are secondary tritone tonicisations, too, so I would try to spell them correctly in the key as augmented sixth chords, but in large key signatures (especially flat ones!) I would probably respell, but only when I had to.
It depends on the resolutions, too. It often makes more sense to show a downward resolution as a flat. I wouldn't alter a third to do that (like D7 to G7 I wouldn't use Gb-F but F#-Fnat, but I might if the progressions was Ab7 G7, even though it isn't strictly correct by my book.)
Readability aside, tritone substitution in jazz is *not* the same thing as augmented sixth chords in classical music -- they resolve differently -- and so I see no reason why they should be spelled the same way.
I'm not with you there. The original augmented sixth chords were like bVI7 chords, which couldn't usually resolve to V directly because of common-practice voice leading requirements, which have been considerably relaxed in these modern times. Nowadays bVI7 absolutely CAN go directly to V7, which is exactly the resolution of the original aug 6ths (except they passed through I64 first). The concept has simply been extended to approaches to OTHER diatonic chords as well, but they function pretty much the same as aug 6ths do on a V7.
Genuine augmented sixth chords in jazz are relatively rare.
Yes, they are considered old-fashioned, like cadential 6/4 chords are, too.
When they *do* happen -- there are some Ellington-Strayhorn charts that use them --
I can see the argument for spelling them according to the "classical" rules. But certainly not for tritone subs -- let alone all the other half-step approach chords.
Hey, I relax the rules from time to time when it helps, too. Like a series of descending dominants in the key of C
Bb7 A7 Ab7 G7 Cmaj7
I would most likely spell even the tritone tonicizations (Bb7 and Ab7) with Ab and Gb to show their resolutions more clearly as DOWN rather than the leading-tone's usual UP resolution. I'm not a tyrant of some sort, after all.
Christopher
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