The fourth scale degree can create that feeling of suspension in time and tonal gravity better than all the others combined. In composing music, the fourth degree provides a similar tonic like tonal stability and color. Oftentimes, the fourth degree or subdominant is commonly utilized to articulate and support a restatement of the main theme of the song, normally associated with the tonic. This melodic format is common to the blues, such as in using one melodic idea over the entire12 bar form. This restatement can be an exact duplication of the theme or simply transposed up a fourth. We do this all the time in all styles of music. Here is a common blues idea created from the major triad, stated first with the pitches of the tonic then transposed up a fourth, repeating the same idea in the major tonality. Example 1.
Example 2, same idea but rewritten in the minor tonality.
Here we use the fourth scale degree all alone in the minor tonality, and as such, it becomes a vamp of the tonic / suspended fourth seventh chord, i min 7 sus 4. Depending on your artistic directions, this can become a very important color on your palette. The music here is slow and mournful, there is a sense of the forlorn in the sus 4 in the minor tonality. Example 3.
Reworking the last idea into the major tonality, achieved by simply raising the minor third up by half step to create the major third in the chord ( Eb to E ). Melody changes to include a more blues sounding fifth to tritone motion before settling in on the fourth. Pushing up the tempo a bit moves the groove into the rock / blues world. Example 4.
The following idea is based on suspending the major 3rd, commonly called a 4 / 3 suspension, try this lick as a in one of your blues arrangements. Example 5.
Reworking the above idea in the minor tonality. Example 6.
Got a sense of the fourth scale degree in the blues? Check out the fourth scale degree in other musical capacities.
| major scale | diatonic chords | cycle of fourths / chord progressions |
"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is."
Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut