Orchestral Voicings Part 4: Extended Harmony and Problematic Intervals 1

After we had a closer look at the management of the lower registers in the last two parts, in this part we will begin to have a closer look at how to manage more complex chords. So the big topic here will be "Extended Harmony". If you are unfamiliar with this concept, maybe hold off reading this article as I will be tackling the theoretical side of this in a future series of posts and come back then. Or try to work with the rough conceptual explanations in this article :)

While with simple triadic harmony it often doesn't really matter which inversion you play as long as you stay roughly in the same register, with more complex chords including several extensions it becomes necessary to focus on how you voice them.

Let's for instance take this dominant C13 chord:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/c13/s-WITXM

While this particular chord might rather be found in Jazz music than Film Scores it will serve us well as an example for discussing extended harmony.

As you can see we extended the straight forward C7 chord (C, E, G, Bb) with a ninth (D), an 11 (F) and a 13 (A).

As you can hear, this particular chord doesn't sound too great and rather intransparent.

A big reason for this problem lies in the interval that exists between the third and 11 of the chord (namely E and F):

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/c13-minor9th/s-qL7i2

This interval of a minor ninth plays a quite big role in the guidelines of voicing chords. The high degree of dissonance that exist between these two notes can dominate a voicing so strongly that it clouds its transparency.

In fact, the dissonance of a minor ninth is particularly stronger than the dissonance of a minor second (which would contain the same notes just minus the octave) that it is considered to be "the last dissonant interval". In fact if you chose any other interval, you could find a chord that includes it and would still sound relatively stable to the "western ear" while this might be very tricky with the minor ninth.

So the general rule is to avoid minor ninths in voicings with an exception to be discussed later.

So with a C13 chord, under normal circumstances you would not play the 11 of the chord:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/c13-no-11/s-EGeSM

You see this voicing sounds already a little bit more transparent, however not really great yet. The plain concept of stacking thirds can quickly result in a thick "wall of chord" that feels rather intransparent. So the question is, what can be done about it as the triadic approach of inversing this chord will unsurprisingly not do much about it's "wally-ness".

So let's keep it there and quickly divert into discussing the two terms of "open harmony" and "close harmony": In order to create some space in a chord it is advisable to stack it's chord tones in larger intervals than thirds. The most basic concept on this would be the difference between close and open harmony as shown here:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/c-closeopen/s-8Tkzj

The first chord shows a C major triad in close position while the second one shows it in open position. The basic principle would be to octave offset every other chord tone. The third (E) is transposed up an octave resulting in a more transparent and "open" sound.

This whole principle could also be used on our more complex C13 chord by octave offsetting every other tone:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/c13-closeopen/s-Cb94T

orange = notes that are octave transposed

As you can see and hear does the open voicing indeed sound way more transparent.

However as usual things are not that easy and there are two more factors to consider here:

1. Range/Register: In most cases it might simply not be desirable to spread a chord out over such a large range. If for instance you want to stay within the more darker register of the strings but also want to avoid violating the low interval limits finding a voicing for such a chord that still sounds transparent becomes a little more tricky.

2. Basic Structures of Extended Chords: Quick side route to music theory: In such extended harmony chords we differentiate between chord tones of "lower structure" and chord tones of "upper structure". The lower structure chord tones are the basic structural elements that define the "gender" of the chord. Depending on which music we're talking about this either includes the root, third and fifth or the root, third, fifth and seventh of the chord. These three or four notes define the overarching quality of the chord (whether it is a major, a minor or a dominant chord). The remaining notes (in our case the 9 and 13) form the upper structure of a chord and can be considered to "colourize" the chord. Their presence or absence doesn't change the overal quality and function of the chord. No matter whether I add them to the chord or not, it will still remain a dominant chord. The general rule of thumb here is to also maintain that general structural difference when voicing such chords meaning to keep the "lower structure" tones UNDER the "upper structure" ones. In general this is a great rule as it also avoids interval stacks that lead to catastrophic vocings.

Speaking of catastrophic voicings, the simple decision to ignore this last part can lead to a trainwreck such as this:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/c13-bad-voicing/s-ht8VE

Notice that in spite of the notes all being there, the chord has absolutely no dominant feeling anymore and the orange minor ninth that this hack inversion caused makes things even worse.

However, this rule is not written in stone. Remember the example from above where we spread out the C13 into an open voicing:

It does violate that rule by placing the ninth (D) lower than the third (E). Yet this voicing sounds absolutely fine and I wouldn't hesitate a second to use this very voicing where appropriate. So generally it might be a good idea to follow this rule when learning but just as with the low interval limits, see it as a "soft" rule.

So we are already a big step into how to voice complex chords properly, even though this might have seemed all pretty theoretical and that particular chord might not be your first choice for getting that "film music vibe" what we discussed today will come in handy when we take the next step.

One more final word here as I know that for some people this can be frustrating: If these examples above sound all "more or less the same" to you and you think "I really don't get the fuss he's making about it, it's all dense chords of some sort." don't worry. This simply means that you might not yet have that much listening experience with these harmonic approaches. As I said, this particular chord is more common in Jazz than it is in Film music so if your general taste doesn't include much listening to Jazz you might feel like there's not much difference here. However let me assure you that the influence that Jazz Harmony had and still has on film music is tremendous and it is well worth diving into that. This will also probably become clearer to you after the next installments of this tutorial.