Aha Moment a Dummy: 3rd/b7th inversions....

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 20 Oct 2005 3:36 pm

Playing around the other night I came across this by accident. I suppose I knew it long ago and then forgot..

The third and b7th, (a six semitone interval or flat5th) interval become inverted six frets up.

Playing them against a circle of fifths you move up one fret for each chord, down one fret for a cycle of fourths, as an inversion each time.

I've been fooling with it more on the tele lately, but will try it on different psg stuff tonite.

I'll be the first to admit that it'd never crossed my mind.

<:O)

EJL

I suppose evading math is a little less consequential than gravity....

Bob Watson · Post by **Bob Watson** » 20 Oct 2005 5:00 pm

Tri-tone substitutions. Play the tonic tri-tone, move it up three frets and get a VI7 chord, up two frets is a II7 chord, up one fret is a V7 chord. If you spell a 7th chord with these intervals: 1,b7,3,5 you can play a One chord w/tonic in the bass, move it up 3 frets and its a VI7(b9) chord w/b5 in the the bass, up two frets its a II7 chord w/tonic in the bass, up one fret its a V7(b9) chord w/b5 in the bass. The first example I gave doesn't have the bass notes. Great stuff! Opens the door to some really cool bass lines.

John Steele · Post by **John Steele** » 20 Oct 2005 5:52 pm

http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum8/HTML/001240.html

-John

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 20 Oct 2005 9:06 pm

I sometimes play at a club in Philly called The Tritone, on South Street. The decor is red and black. It's a develish place.

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 21 Oct 2005 5:25 am

The Devil's Trichord, e.g. E/Bb/E once banned by the church, is two roots separated by six semi-tones from the intermediate note; if you go up six frets, you have Bb/E/Bb, and six more frets up, you see a pattern forming--666--oh no, I can't stop, I've been possessed....!

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 21 Oct 2005 7:00 pm

A tritone (an interval of three whole steps) is simply a diminished chord with every other note left out (a half diminished?). The simplest diminished chord on E9 is with the F lever (also lower the 2nd string a half step to get the full chord on the top strings). Therefore, if you use the F lever and skip every other note of the chord, you have a movable tritone. On the C6 neck, pedals 5 and 6 together give a diminished chord between strings 9 and 3. Again, you can skip every other note of the chord and have a movable tritone. If one of the notes of the tritone is the 3rd of a given chord, then it forms the essence of a dominant 7th chord. This is how diminished and 7ths are related by tritones. [This message was edited by David Doggett on 21 October 2005 at 08:06 PM.]

richard burton · Post by **richard burton** » 21 Oct 2005 11:04 pm

Oi'll get me coat

Bruce Clarke · Post by **Bruce Clarke** » 24 Oct 2005 11:44 am

Eric, I remember finding this on the piano, and then realizing that on the steel one only needs 6 frets to play the 12 dom seventh chords (correct bass notes required)

Rick McDuffie · Post by **Rick McDuffie** » 26 Oct 2005 7:22 pm

Country singers love them whole tone scales.

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 30 Oct 2005 4:46 pm

Another aha moment today. I suddenly realized that a minor 6th chord contains that same interval. b3 to 6 is the same as 3 to b7.

No wonder it sounds so cool.

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 31 Oct 2005 5:00 am

I can't believe I'm passing up an opportunity to tell Eric and Bobby I knew that when I was 10.... I must be losing my edge.

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 31 Oct 2005 6:39 pm

Well Charlie, I hesitated to post it because I knew it was something I either knew or forgot in high school, or should have known.

I think playing guitar has been REALLY good for seeing intervals better, and solving "mysteries" that lurk.

I'm wondering if that is indeed a minor sixth or as I was calling it an augmented fifth. I suppose it's in the context of usage as I always say.

I've been using whole note scales a lot and dim scales getting from here to there and transferring linear motion of chords from E9.

This interval is the key guitar lick to Edgar Winters' Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo, and is used up and down to many modern country songs.

I like learning new OR old things.

I should probably be embarrassed, but that's not one of my normal states.....

EJL

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 31 Oct 2005 7:44 pm

Another thing about the tritone interval. It can resolve inward or outward.

Play E and Bb. Resolve inward to F and A (F major) or outward to D# and B (B major).

You didn't pass up the opportunity, Charlie. Piano players never do.

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 1 Nov 2005 4:48 am

It's true, B0b and Eric; piano players are insufferable. We think our knowlege of theory is so superior, because learning it on piano is so EASY.

The world of steel guitar presents new problems every day, and if I don't just luck into something, I'm sunk.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 1 Nov 2005 8:15 am

Well Charlie, there is one simplifying aspect of steel guitar. The bar creates movable scales and chords. On piano, as well as horns and orchestral strings, if you want to know scales and chords by heart, you have to learn them in 12 different keys. And you can multiply that by all the different modes. On steel, once you learn a scale and set of chords for one key, you just move the bar to get any key you want. The strings, pedals and levers are the same for all keys. Of course there are several different positions (no-pedals, AB down, AF, for majors; A pedal, BC pedals, E-lower lever, for minors). But that is three rather than 12. Then of course you can follow single strings up and down the neck rather than picking across the strings. So it can get complicated, but it doesn't have to be.

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 1 Nov 2005 12:51 pm

Au contraire, mon ami. Only at first do you learn 11 scales on a piano. After you learn them, it's only one big scale--the keyboard. The intervals are obvious all up and down the keyboard, in linear fashion.

Or it could be that steel is much harder, because I'm SO much older now.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 1 Nov 2005 2:06 pm

Well, the keyboard is one big chromatic scale for naming the notes, yes. But for any particular scale or chord, you have to know exactly which white and black notes to hit. Sure the intervals are the same going from one scale or chord to the next, but the pattern of white and black notes, the grip, changes for each one. Not so on steel guitar. Once you learn the strings and pedals to use for a major scale at the C fret, it is the same strings and pedals for any major scale at any fret. The pattern does not change. There are no white and black notes to keep up with. Once you learn the grip for a chord at the C fret, the grip is exactly the same for that chord in any key at any fret. That is a huge simplification.

Take a chord on piano, any chord, and move it up the chromatic scale, a half-step at a time. It's not easy. Whether a given finger plays a white note or black note changes with each half-step. You have to make each finger choose correctly. It's a different grip for each one. On steel guitar, you just move the bar up a fret. The strings your right hand picks stay exactly the same. It's way easier.

Michael Barone · Post by **Michael Barone** » 1 Nov 2005 8:18 pm

This thread brought to my mind "Birdland". You know, the part where a tritone moves down chromatically, covering 8 half-steps or more. Obviously, a lot easier on steel, than keyboard.

But, considering chord melody for example, PSG is still more challenging than keyboard for me. I guess I agree with Charlie.

Mike

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 2 Nov 2005 4:25 am

I think playing guitar has been REALLY good for seeing intervals better, and solving "mysteries" that lurk.

I'm still not certain that learning "Red River Valley" is a necessary prerequisite for learning "Purple Haze" or the 24th caprice for solo violin by Paganini, but I sure do think that playing guitar is a big help in learning steel - I even keep a little guitar on a stand by my steel right now, just to resolve theory questions. The pictoral nature of the scales and the relationships of 4ths and 5ths are so easy to see on a six-string. I usually keep another beater guitar around tuned in a fifths tuning like a violin (C G D A E G, low to high) and strangely enough it seems much harder to "see" the patterns. But maybe I've just gotten old and stupid too. So many musicians, including six-stringers, turn to a keyboard to resolve questions and develop ideas that there's got to be something there, for anybody who is willing to learn from other's experiences (not me!) instead of figuring out everything the hard way.[This message was edited by David Mason on 02 November 2005 at 04:27 AM.]

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 2 Nov 2005 6:29 am

Let's beat this horse again!

Well, the keyboard is one big chromatic scale for naming the notes, yes.

I gather you use piano for figuring out interval relationships. A piano player plays familiar patterns, only he doesn't call them grips. Note names are not a consideration.

Take a chord on piano, any chord, and move it up the chromatic scale, a half-step at a time. It's not easy.

It is if you use both hands!

Once you learn the grip for a chord at the C fret, the grip is exactly the same for that chord in any key at any fret.

I guess I need to get a grip.

But mainly: the piano keyboard is basically one dimensional; the pedal steel has two dimensions, up and down in two directions, not to mention the third and fourth dimensions of pedals and levers, and that danged volume pedal.

Pedal steel is like nothing else.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 2 Nov 2005 8:32 am

Oh yeah, I agree the one-to-one relationship of written (or mental) notes to notes on a keyboard (or a horn) is much simpler than the multiple choices of strings, frets, pedals and levers of a pedal steel. And I agree that a keyboard is the most useful way to learn theory, because you can see all the notes and intervals. And yes, for difficult theory and interval questions, I work them out and hear how they sound on piano, then go to the steel guitar and figure out how to do the same thing, by ear and/or by counting intervals.

My point is simply that, in spite of the mulitiplicity of options on steel, the bar, acting as a movable capo, is a major simplifying factor that is unavailable for keyboards and horns. For a major chord, the tonic (on E9, no-pedals) is always strings 8,6,5. The first inversion is 6,5,4; and the 2nd inversion is 5,4,3. Those right hand grips are the same in any key, you just move the bar to a different fret. But on piano, the tonic is sometimes 3 white notes; sometimes a white, a black, a white; sometimes a black note, a white, a black, etc. That unique "grip" has to be memorized for each different key.

For this reason the number system works really well for steel. Shout out the numbers for a progression, and I will find the chords on steel on the fly, whether I am in the key of C or the key of F#. Outside of the key of C, the number system is no help to me on piano. I have no clue what the IV and V chords are in the key of F# (probably memorized them for some piano teacher 50 years ago, and promptly forgot them). Sure, I can figure them out if I stop and count out the intervals, but not on the fly. I need to know the actual names of the chords, just to find the roots. And I still would not know the pattern of white and black notes for the rest of each chord, without stopping to count out the intervals. So in that sense, there is much more memorization of the unique patterns of scales and chords in all the different keys for keyboards and horns than there is for steel.

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 2 Nov 2005 1:36 pm

I'm wondering if that is indeed a minor sixth or as I was calling it an augmented fifth. I suppose it's in the context of usage as I always say.

Eric, I may be reading it wrong; but the interval cited (third and flat seventh) sounds like like a dim 5th. Up the b7 a tone and you'd have a minor 6th.
That's the thing about piano; it's obvious.
You know a minor third (e-g) and a 4th make a minor sixth.
Triads, just like a steel guitar.
Playing them is like grips, only the grip changes fingers rather than strings. That's why I play with 4 or 5 fingers on steel.
Another handicap.
It's all in what you start out with I guess.
Piano is great for theory, but guys who start with steel guitar and stay with it become really good steel players.[This message was edited by Charlie McDonald on 02 November 2005 at 01:38 PM.]

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 2 Nov 2005 2:43 pm

I'm having to learn things on marimba that were irrelevant on steel. Like sharps and flats. You don't see sharps and flats on a steel guitar. You don't have to think about them.

On a steel guitar, transposing is really easy. You just move the bar up or down a few frets and play the same thing you played before. Not so easy on piano (or marimba). Thise darn sharps and flats mix everything up!

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Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 2 Nov 2005 5:08 pm

Eric: I think that "minor 6th" usually refers to a chord (1 b3 5 6) not an interval. The interval that's 4 steps wide is called an augmented 5th or a diminished 6th.

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 2 Nov 2005 8:58 pm

Well six frets at any rate...

C and F# etc..

EJL