augmented tonic chord colors

Tonic function augmented chords. Nice handle eh? Just building a musical vocabulary no? Mainly a jazz color, and occasionally in the blues, tonic function implies that these chords are used as the center and originator of tonal gravity within a musical composition, i.e., the key of the tune. That something is augmented with the tonic chords implies that we have enlarged one or more intervals within the chord. Compare the following evolution of tonic chordal sounds in the major tonality, each based on the common root C. Example 1.

The + 5 and #11 are the two common tonic function chords with augmented intervals within their structure. Let's spell out the pitches of the chords in example 1 and see what we've got going here. Example 1a.

Starting with the essential three note major triad in bar 1, we move into the upper structure by adding the major 7th, creating the common tonic / major 7th color in bar 2. In the third bar, the fifth degree of the major triad is augmented by half step, creating the augmented triad, as designated in the written chord symbol, C maj 7 + 5. In the fourth bar, we re-color the cool tonic major ninth by adding the sharp 11th, implying that the 11th chord degree has been augmented by half step. Dig the sound of these tonic augmented chords in bars 3 and 4? Are you cool with spelling chords?

A common variation of the tonic #11 color is to simply move the #11 down one octave. Players term this chord the major 7 / b5. Here we use it within the Two / Five / One motion, using the major 7 / b5 color to subtly delay the sense of tonic rest. Example 1b.

Jazz pianist Bill Evans often used this augmented coolness with the tonic colors. What is the interval relationship between the tonic and augmented 11? Right, removing the octave, basically the interval of a tritone. Here is where we get the augmented 11 chord degree. Example 1c.

See how we have simply rearranged the pitches of the C major scale into it's tonic arpeggio? Simply by skipping every other note? Yeh, that's cool, but all of pitches in the arpeggio are not exactly the same as in the major scale. What's up with that? Good eye my friend, the arpeggio has evolved into the Lydian mode. Compare the sound. Example 1c.

Well? If you had to choose which chord is cooler from the example above, which would it be? From a theoretical perspective, the tonic maj 9 + 11 color is perhaps more correct. In chords of this dimension, the 11th is raised by half step ( augmented) to avoid the dissonance of the minor 9th, created between the third of the chord E and natural 11, F, and the tritone interval created between the major 7th B and the natural 11th F, normally associated with dominant harmony. Cool with this? Simply avoiding dissonance. Using the F natural up this high in the arpeggio also goofs up our consistent major third / minor third sequence in creating this tonic arpeggio. Our what? Our consistent major third / minor third arpeggio sequence associated with tonic function chords, ya know, as part of the overtone series experiments? Sure. Do we ever use the natural 11 in tonic harmony? Well, from a theoretical perspective, not really. The color is a bit too unstable to be used in a traditional tonic capacity. The natural 11 is a popular choice for dominant and two chord harmony though, we usually call it the sus 4 chord or minor 11th respectively. Are you hip? Essential to most rockers, the "sus 4" creates that "epic feel" where rockers love and need to go.

Anyway, back to the topic of this page, voicing the C maj 9 + 11 chord this way is a nice way to soften the tritone's dissonance while giving our tonic chord a certain instability eh? Is the # 11 also a door into the polytonal environment? Could be. Did you notice the tonic type G major 7 chord in the upper part of the C major 7 + 11? In the literature, of the three tonic augmented chord possibilities, the tonic # 11 chord is way more used than the tonic major 7 + 5 or the major 7 b5, which are sort of rare birds indeed, at least in the written literature.

Where can we use these augmented tonic colors in the music? If your recently emerging to this level of the chord, maybe try this color as the last chord of an arrangement, when the tonic color is centered in the major tonality. Birds' eye the last hold and run arpeggios searching for your coolness, it's way fun. Many experienced players love to tag an arrangement with this modern tonic sound due to it's cool color and relative stable / unstable nature, as we ascend upward in the arpeggio towards the polytonal opening. Example 1d.

We also find this color within the body of a composition, in practically any place we have a tonic functioning chord. Using a tonic major 7 + 11color as say the first chord in a song, the entire musical environment can be shaded to this hue, creating quite a different tonality as compared to the perhaps more traditional relative major / relative minor environments, effecting all of the other musical elements within the composition. Read through or listen to Miles Davis' compositions "Blue In Green" or "Nefertiti" when time permits to get a sense of the potential for this exotic tonality. 

Another cool idea to tastefully using the + 11 tonic color is to delay an impending resolution as directed by a cadential motion. Using Two / Five / One in C major, example 1e.

In the preceding idea, the "delay" of resolution is simply created by using the non-diatonic, augmented 11 tonic color ( C maj 9 + 11 ), followed by it's resolution to tonic major 7. All this delay is simply achieved by the half step motion between F#, the +11 and G, the fifth of our tonic chord. Cool? Thought so. New for you? You dig? Dynamite, God bless and welcome to the softened tonal gravity of the upper structure. Have you heard the piano music of Bill Evans?

Of course, we could resolve to the fifth chord degree from a half step above and get to use of tonic major 7th + 5 color. Let's do that. Example 1f.

Like the motion? Perhaps a bit more adventuresome than the # 11? How subtle would the change in color be if we lowered the 7th by half step to the blue 7th and applied the same principles of augmenting the perfect intervals? Curious? The augmented dominant colors ...?

"The truth is more important than the facts."

Frank Lloyd Wright