Chords for Jazz Arranger Analyzes Domi & JD Beck

[Gm] _ _ [Db] _ _ [A] _ _ [E] _ _
[Bb] _ [C] Hi guys, my name is Adi Eshaya.
I'm an arranger, composer and producer and if you ever [Dm] watched
any of my videos, they are typically on the subject of arranging, tips and techniques.
I was just about to start another one and I got a link from my daughter to Tiny Desk
Concert by Domi and JD Beck.
[C] _ _ [D] _ _
[Gbm] _ _ [Bb] _ _ [Eb] As I was listening to this, [N] it really threw me back into the
late 70s when I was a younger musician, really interested in Cheekorea and Herbie Hancock
and I remember that feeling of running to the store excited about buying a new record.
As I was listening, _ I started recognizing certain elements that _ really combine the old
and the new in a way that is really worth talking about.
I want to bring up a couple
things.
The first one is the drum sound.
This drum sound was familiar to me, even
though this is a completely different kind of playing, but I remembered suddenly the
way Grady Tate sounded on Stan Getz's Sweet Rain record that was something that came out
in 1967.
[Bm] _ _
[Gbm] _ [Gb] _ _ [B] _ I noticed actually for the first time that the drummer placed those towels
on top of the drums and it gave you [A] this really dry sound.
So if you ever check this album,
pay attention to the drum sound.
Of course, Cheekorea and Stan Getz were fantastic on
that one, but something about Grady Tate's drumming that is worth checking out.
Her chordal
structure also was reminiscent of the Steps Ahead pools from 1983.
_ _ [Eb] _ _
[Cm] _ _ [F] _ _ [C] _ _ [F] _ _
[Ab] _ _ _ [A] _ [C] _ _ [F] _ _
_ _ [D] _ [F] _ _ [Gb] There was some great combination there between [Ab] the functional harmony and the non-functional
harmony in such a nice and natural way.
This is a completely new kind of sound,
but as far as the textures, a lot of this was familiar and I thought maybe I'll just take the
intro and take it [A] apart a little bit and talk a little bit about the harmonies and the various
techniques that I can actually [Gm] recognize.
[Gb] The first one is the hybrid chords.
The concept
with hybrid is that you can build your chords in the most basic structure in thirds and you start
with the root, go to the third, go to the fifth, go to the [F] seventh.
If you continue building more
thirds, then you arrive to the tensions, which are the ninth, eleventh and thirteenth.
_ Then you go
back to the basic structure [E] and remove some of the supporting notes, like the third.
If you take the
third out, for example, you can build a G triad over a C root, that in other words, it's basically
saying C major ninth without the third.
There are a lot of different combination of chords that you
can build that way and create some ambiguity with the harmony that really adds a little more spice
to the whole thing.
This is B flat major ninth [Bb] chord.
_ _ _ If I take the root down an octave, _ _ _ _ _ this is
the upper structure of the chord starting from the [Dm] third. _ _ _
[Bb] Now if I took the third out of the chord,
_ [F] _ _
now the chord sounds a little more ambiguous and we're basically looking at something like
upper structure triad, where we have F triad over B flat [Bb] bass.
_ [F] _ _ A series of such chords would sound
like this.
_ [Eb] _ _ [Ab] _ [Bb] _ _ [E] _ _
The second type of voicing that I recognized on Domi's recording is voicings in
fourths.
Typically you hear those kind of chords in big band arranging, where [Gb] you have at least
four or five parts playing in adjacent fourths, which gets a little harsher kind of sound to the
chord than your typical layers of thirds.
_ Keyboard players tend to play [N] three parts,
because if we play a chord with our right hand and just a bass note in left hand,
_ _ with fourths that's as much as we can, most of us can reach.
So much of what I recognize on
Domi's recording is voicings in fourths on the right hand and a bass note with the left hand.
When you play that over an inverted bass, you get sometimes a much sweeter sound than you would
typically get with harshness of adjacent fourths over the root.
_ An example would be,
let's take for example B flat major chord.
If you voice your chord from top to bottom, B flat,
F and C, that structure by itself can have a little harshness to it.
With a root, it really
emphasizes that sound that is actually missing the third.
But if you play this as an inversion
with a D on the bottom, suddenly it's a completely different thing.
It's something that some people
would even call like B flat 2 over D.
And it's a different kind of inversion, but you really take
advantage of the fourths.
So we'll look at where she uses those kind of sounds.
[G] Let's take a look
at voicings in fourths in three parts.
This is G major 6 _ or G major 7. _ _
The notes that would be
available in either one of these chords would be the root, [A] tension 9, the third, the fifth,
the [Bm] sixth that could also be tension 13 in case you use the major 7th as well, and the major 7.
[B] _ [G] Again, these are the available notes. _
_ _ _ Now if I drew three note voicings in fourths,
here are some possibilities. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ If they are in root position, they would sound this way. _ _ _ _ _ _
They're a little hollow, they're a little more incomplete and have a bit of stark tone to them.
In the next example, we have them [B] inverted.
So basically you take a couple of those voicings
and place it over the third in the bass.
So the chord symbol actually looks like G6 9 over B. _ _
_ _ _ _ So these are the sweeter sounding chords.
_ [G] _ _ [Eb] I'm going to conclude this video with a very loose
[Gb] transcription of what I thought Domi's intro sounded like.
And you'll see a little analysis
of the techniques that we mentioned today that hopefully will sum up all these [A] materials for you.
[Gm] _ _ [Db] _ _ _ [Gb] _ _
[Em] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
[Em] If you are interested in the type of [A] materials we discussed today or in [E] any kind of
arranging [Am] techniques, check out my arranging tips videos.
[Bb] Please subscribe to my channel
[C] and [F] look out for courses that are coming [Em] up sometime soon.
Thank you again for watching [D] and we'll see you on the next one. _ _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _