Module 9 mini-test

1. What are guide tones in a seventh chord?

2. What are the guide tones of G7?

3. How do they resolve to C?

4. Why is the fifth often omitted from jazz voicings?

5. What is a shell voicing?

6. What does top-note control mean?

7. Why can register change how dissonant two notes sound?

8. What is the inner chromatic line in C → E7 → Am?

9. What is the difference between chord identity and chord voicing?

10. What should you generally do first when creating a voicing for a melody?

Answers

1. Usually the 3rd and 7th, which strongly define quality and function.
2. B and F
3. B → C, F → E
4. It usually contributes less harmonic information than the 3rd, 7th, or extensions.
5. A reduced voicing containing essential chord tones, commonly root, 3rd, and 7th.
6. Choosing chord inversions/spacing so the desired melody note is the highest voice.
7. Wider spacing reduces the perceptual harshness of close intervals.
8. G → G♯ → A
9. Chord identity specifies which harmony it is; voicing specifies how those notes are distributed across registers.
10. Establish the melody/top note and bass, then fit the important harmony between them.

The key lesson of Module 9 is:

Sophisticated piano harmony comes less from adding more notes than from making each individual note move intelligently.

Next, Module 10 is where we fully enter seventh-chord language: maj7, dominant 7, minor 7, half-diminished, diminished 7, their construction, their sound, and how to recognize what each one wants to do harmonically.