Chords for LACM Stream Now: Jody Fisher Guitar Quick Tip - "Quartal Harmony"

This is quartal harmony.
Now if you've studied harmony before, you know that most chords that
come from our western music system are built from thirds, intervals of thirds.
We stack thirds on
top of each other to create all kinds of chords, and then we alter them to get all kinds of
different sounds.
But there's another whole system of harmony out there, and this is called quartal
harmony.
And these are chords that are built on fourths.
Now there are two kinds of fourths.
There
are pure fourths, meaning that every note we play, every interval is an exact perfect fourth,
you know, from C to F for instance.
Then there are also what we call diatonic fourths,
and these are situations where we try to stay true to a key, and sometimes we'll adjust an
interval to make sure it stays in the key.
But today we're talking about pure fourths,
or natural fourths.
Now these are chords that you can build two, three notes, four notes, five notes,
you know, we're going to stick with three note chords for right now.
So if we took a shape, take a
look at this shape.
[G] This chord is based on fourths.
This is a D, [Gm] that's a G, that's the distance of a fourth.
From G to [G] C is a fourth, _ okay?
Now this string set, meaning three, two, and one, [C] this is the shape for
[A] all fourth chords.
[C] Move them around.
[A] Now in the next string set, the shape looks like [D] this.
All right, now we have an A, a D, and a G.
_ _ [A] _ And then on the next string set, five, four, three, the shape
looks like this, [D] _ and which is [B] the same shape as six, five, and four.
[A] Okay, so we've got, _ _ _ [B] and I'm sure
you've all heard things like, _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ okay, and these are the kinds of [Cm] chords used for those kinds of chord
progressions.
But how do you use them, and when can you use them?
It's actually very simple.
What we're
going to do is apply them to minor chords where they work particularly well.
So let's say we had a
C minor 7 chord. _ _
Okay, [Gb] so you know this chord, and you also know a C minor pentatonic scale, [C] no doubt. _
_ [Cm] _ And we know how well those two tools work.
Okay, so what we're going to do, if you had a C minor 7
chord, you could take these quartal chord shapes and outline the shape of the pentatonic scale with
them.
In other words, _ [C] _ [Bb] would translate to, [G] _ _ _
_ [F] _ okay, so [Ab] I'm taking each note of the pentatonic [G] scale
and applying one of those chords [F] _ to each note.
Okay, now what do you do with it?
Well, [C] the good
news about this is that all of these chords within this pentatonic scale can be used to substitute
for the C minor 7 chord itself.
Okay, so [D] if you had a progression that was a one chord vamp, maybe,
or a section of a song that's on one chord for a long time, [Cm] and you're kind of sick of playing C
minor all night.
[A] _ [F] _ _ [Bb] _ _ [Cm] _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ [F] _ _ _ [D] _
_ [Cm] _ Okay, so you can see how good that sounds.
It's a little more of a modern sound.
[A] You can also arpeggiate [G] them and _ _ _ get [Gb] some solo ideas out of it as well.
Okay, now that's quartal
harmony 101.
Now, for those of you out there that know a little bit about this already, let's
beef it up a little bit.
All of these chords can be inverted.
Okay, now they stop being fourth
chords at that point, but they can be used in exactly the same way.
So how do you invert these
chords?
Well, our [G] first chord looked like this.
So what I'm going to do is take that note C on [D] top
and drop it an octave.
[A] Gives me this.
Okay, now it's the same three notes, but this is no longer
a quartal chord anymore because [D] this is from C to D is a major second.
[G] We still have our fourth here,
[D] though, but it's really a major second [Gm] and a perfect fourth.
So it's not quite the same [G] thing,
but you can move it around the same way.
Now, because [Ab] the shapes will change from string set
to string set, you have to play a little more horizontally this way.
[G] So your pentatonic ideas
_ _ _ [Cm]
are going to go that way instead. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ [A] Okay, so that works.
Gives you more ammunition.
Now, we can
invert it again.
Let's take this shape and take that G and drop it an octave.
And now we've got this.
And once again, you can [F] skate around _ _
horizontally on the fingerboard this way in pentatonic scales, and it's going [G] to work.
Okay,
so we had this, this, and this.
Now we're going to invert it again, and guess what happens?
We're
back to the original shape again.
Okay, so you have a lot to [Cm] do there.
You can play fourths
[F] or any of _ [A] _ their inversions.
I'm sorry I get caught up in my playing sometimes.
[G] And _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ [G] it brings you
right up to 2011 and more modern sounds.
So get into this.
Remember, use them for minor chords,
and I think your bandmates will be pretty impressed, and it'll open up their ideas for
solos as well. _ _ _ _ _