Originally posted on June 3, 2012

In this episode, I talk about my jazz fusion piece “Fusion” composed in 1994. I also talk about extended major and extended minor chords.

I started by reading an email from Steve Snively and a comment from Viv Black.

My favorite chords are the extended major and minor chords that are built by stacking alternative major and minor thirds.

For major:

• C-E-G is a major chord
• C-E-G-B is a major 7th. This is a melancholy sound. I play short clips from Tin Man and Ventura Highway by America that use a lot of major 7th chords. Late Day Storm uses 2 major 7th chords for the second half of the chord progression.
• C-E-G-B-D is a major 9th. It sounds like the major 7th, with the addition of the 9th which is a color note.
• C-E-G-B-D-F# is C maj9#11. I played Tell Me A Be ...