Triads Over Bass Notes – AnExplanation

Triads over Bass Notes – AnExplanation

by Pete SklaroffTriads played over single bass notes (sometimes also termed ‘slash’ chords) havebeen a constituent part of popular music and jazz harmony for many years, butthey still puzzle many players as to their application and actual function inharmonic terms. Hopefully this lesson will go someway in demystifying thesechords and offer you a way to employ them in your own music, and perhaps alsonegotiate playing over them in improvisational terms too.

It should also be noted that triads over bass notes are not to be confused withplaying two triads one over another, which is a completely different area ofharmony and which I’ll maybe cover in a later lesson. This article focuses on theuse of major triads played over different bass notes but you can in fact employany triadic type in this fashion, creating a whole series of quite unique soundingvoicings that can be used in place of more conventional chord forms.

For this lesson let’s examine a very common harmonic sequence in jazz music, theIIm7 – V7 – IM7 progression where we might begin with employing triads overbass notes. Illustrated below in the key of C Major (in chord symbols) is theapproach that many players would employ for the chord progression usingconventional harmonic thinking and chord forms.

Dm7 – G7 – Cmaj7

In jazz circles, this simple progression is often diatonically extended or evenchromatically ‘altered’ to create more colour and tension, especially between theV7 chord and the tonic major chord. See below.

Dm9 – G7(alt) – Cmaj9

This ‘enhanced’ version of the IIm7 – V7 – IM7 progression provides us with agreat opportunity to use triads over bass notes and illustrated below is a resultingharmonization.

F/D – E/G – G/C

So why are we using these particular chords? The answer lies in the sound theyimply over the original harmony and this is where many players become confusedas to the use of triads over bass notes. To explain further, let’s examine in moredetail what is happening here.

Traditional thinking with harmony often tells us that you have to have particularpitches contained within a chord structure to fully realize it’s sound andindividual harmonic character, however that isn’t always the case and as we’llsee, these triads over bass notes often ‘suggest’ a chord sound rather than fullyrealize every possible pitch that the chord could contain.

In the last example above I’ve used an F major triad over a D bass note instead ofthe original Dm7 chord, which gives us the pitches: D F A and C. This actually

spells out a Dm7 chord in full, as the combination of a Root, m3rd, 5th and b7th

supplies all the required pitches to create a minor 7th chord.

The situation changes slightly however when we arrive at the dominant 7th chord(V7) within the progression, as here we are using an E major triad over a G bassnote. The pitches produced are: G E Ab and B, which doesn’t immediately suggesta G7 chord as there is no b7 present (F).

What is actually happening here is that we are implying the sound of an ‘altered’

dominant 7th chord. If we assume that the chord is functioning as an altered

dominant chord we can explain the use of the E major triad as giving us a 13th, b9

and 3rd, even though the expected b7 isn’t present. In short and simple terms, thisvoicing works because we are hearing it in a harmonic context, so the lack of theexpected b7 isn’t an issue.

The final triad over bass note we are employing is over the tonic major 7th chordand here we used a G major triad over a C bass note. This gives us the following

pitches: C G B D. In the context of a C major chord, we now have a Root, 5th,

major 7th and 9th. You’ll also see that there is no 3rd present within this voicing butas with the previous chord, it isn’t a problem because we hear the voicing incontext within the overall progression.

That about wraps things up then for this short lesson on triads over bass notes,but there is much more that can be achieved with them in many functionalharmonic progressions. I’ve included a sheet here as well, which covers all the 12major triad over bass note voicings and their most common applications. I hopeyou find it useful in your musical explorations.

Happy practicing

Pete Sklaroff

Pete Sklaroff is one of the top guitar educators in the UK… “The Teacher’sTeacher”. He is currently offering 1 hour Skype lessons at the crazy price of £30an hour which includes PDF’s and video examples of everything covered inlessons.