The Secrets of Quartal Harmony

Watch your jazz piano playing come to LIFE when you add stacks of 4ths!

Video recorded using:
Earthworks SV33
Earthworks PM40
Panasonic Lumix G85

Follow me here:

[pulsarlights]

What's that old joke: rock musicians play 3 chords to thousands of people while jazz musicians play thousands of chords to 3 people?

[georgehiggins]

I did a deep dive (or as close as I'm going to get to one, at this stage of my playing) on quartal voicings this year. The application of them over minor chords is delicious and the use of augmented fourths for dominant sounds is very satisfying. One thing I discovered, that might be useful to y'all, is that if you build fourths up from the 3rd of a dominant chord, you get the natural extensions, but if you do fourths up from the 7th, you get altered extensions! Tasty!

[MrVyrtuoso]

The 5th isn't really boring. It's actually essential to defining a tonality. But we can omit it since it, being the strongest overtone after the 1st and 2nd harmonics, is a very present overtone of the bass when the bass sounds the root of a chord.

[BrianMegilligan]

I've been playing the Mantooth quartal harmonies for years, but it was only fairly recently that I had the epiphany that the stacked notes in 4ths create a pentatonic scale (If you use five, rather than the four in your example). So E, A, D, G, C reordered = C, D, E, G, A! This helped me see how inverting these voicings also really add to your vocabulary, so E, A, D, G, C becomes G, C, E, A, D then A, D, G, C, E and so on!

[TheMeJustMe]

I'm a Progressive Metal guitarist that loves the piano. I actually took piano lessons when I was about 10 years old. Unfortunately I didn't practice because I was obsessed with Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhodes. Luckily I picked the piano back up about three years ago, so glad I did.

[fernandoherranz]

As a beginning self-taught piano student, a lot of what Amy says is a bit over my head. However, she's such a great teacher that she makes this stuff reachable for a student like me! She helps me HEAR what she's talking about and uses the interval approach which I understand pretty well, being that I'm a bass player. Thank you Amy for helping me grow as a musician! You're helping me "tune" my ear to jazz voicings.

[lightbeatz]

thats dope thanks for helping musicians

[gernblenstein]

It's like you're dancing about architecture to me. And it's beautiful.

[md-pshx]

Another cool clip. Nicely explained. Hi from London England.

[kilimanjarno]

I'm so glad that I discovered you. I love that you deliver great content without screaming. Your voice is fantastic for instructional youtube. Glad I found you.

[africkinamerican]

As a partially educated amateur, I never knew what to call these types of chords. I've always called it the 1-4-7 or 1-4-7-10. I just knew I loved them, heard them a lot in gospel and Jazz, and I've borrowed them for my own use.

[kevinwlord]

TI just started studying quartal harmony, and you make it easier to learn. Thanks!

[brendaboykin]

Thank you, Aimee. Beautiful singing 🌹🌹🌹🌹

[bond-suits]

Thank you, this is very enlightening! I've long been a fan of McCoy Tyner, and this helps me better understand what he was doing.

[soulcraftloops]

O wow… this is so amazing!

I’m simplifying this in my head by just thinking of where to start the stacked 4ths by simply remembering the chord tone it starts on!

So for major chords you have the 3 the 6 and the 7. For minor chords you have the 1, 2 and 5 etc.

I feel like my playing just expanded within minutes of doing this! You’re teaching style is so straightforward and understandable… So thank you endlessly Aimee!

Gonna be sharing this and your channel with all the jazz cats I know 🙏

[markkington]

hey cool. cheers for this... i have never heard many (if any) people talk about this subject! .. loved it

[AmbroseChan]

Thank you, Aimee for this video on quartal harmonies! This really helps open up the choices we have to further enhance our sound!

[thewizardmountain]

quartals... the final frontier.... these are the voyages of the aimee nolte piano...

[ronwass]

Unlike some other self-proclaimed jazz teachers on youtube with large followings, who like to talk at us and tell us how they see the world, Amy actually teaches us some real helpful stuff.

[smhir]

Quartal is the best for adding warmth and movement to a otherwise stale sound! Love the emotional range and mathematical quality those symmetries provide. In a sense quartal harmonies have an essencial minor quality (minor thirds of a note will be found on the fourth consecutive perfect fourth: E - A - D - G) while quintal harmonies are essentially major (major third will be found on the fifth consecutive perfect fifth E - B - F# - C# - G#). Those are very fun to explore and to recognize in different recordings (Boards of Canada chords are fourths and a vibrato modulation). Great video as usual Aimee!