The 7 Levels of Jazz Harmony

Ya like jazz? You will!

There are 7 levels of Jazz Harmony, and we'll explore each of them through reharmonizing the chorus of one of my favorite tunes from 2019 - Lizzo's Juice. Thanks to Jae Soto for singing!

OUTRO TRACK (Dilla Beat + Intonalist Harmony)

Level 1 - "Bell Pepper" - II-V’s and other basic tonal movements
Level 2 - "Poblano Pepper" - Sub V’s and other stuff
Level 3 - "Jalepeño Pepper" - Crazy chromatic extensions
Level 4 - "Piri Piri Pepper"- Constant Structures and Pedal Point
Level 5 - "Habenero Pepper"- Free non-functional harmony
Level 6 - "Ghost Pepper"- Liberated Dissonance
Level 7 - "???" - Xenharmony

These 7 levels aren't meant to be exhaustive in terms of the harmonic techniques of jazz musicians - there really are way too many to get into for a single YouTube video - but they can be useful as a general guide to the FEELING of different kinds of harmonic ideas. As an added bonus, they're roughly in chronological order in terms of when each level occurred on the timeline of jazz history, although no single musician was ever working so formally.

Jae Soto (singer)

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Adam

[AdamNeely]

Which is your level of preferred spice? Can you handle level 6 ghost pepper?

[bigstanky]

you know your playin hardcore jazz when the chords look like wifi passwords

[Cesar-eywu]

*the scooby gang remove the mask of 7th level of jazz harmony* : "it was lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to all along !"

[CARROTMOLD]

My 12 year old self randomly stacking notes in finale was really just liberated dissonance.

[yourtypicalcupoftea]

**bangs head on piano** there we have some level 6 jazz

[Wadosan]

Me: *Plays 33 cents out of tune*
Section leader: Push in, you’re flat
Me: I have achieved xenharmonism

[ststst]

So what youre telling me is that LoFi hiphop is the highest level of jazz we can ever achieve?

[tsg_frank]

I love level 6 purely because of how ANGRY the chords sound, the fact that Adam describes these intervals as "At War" is fantastic.

[Danygd]

After 4 years of studying music theory i finally understand every chord and how they function harmonically within each chord progression in level 3 and below. I feel better than I’ve had in months

[josiahwood]

Me:*headbutts piano*
Adam: "level 8 jazz right there"

[Magnymbus]

Level 7 goes so far past the deep end that it overflows back around to the opposite side.

[isaac_paech]

"Level 2 is where i stop thank you. After that it starts to just become dissonant noise instead of pleasing harmonies." - from the classical pianist

[beseakos]

Just enrolled into jazz school after 18 years of classical violin and having my entire world I knew about harmony destroyed by my compulsory piano teacher in the first lesson was a life changing experience. Rootless voicings, and all that stuff just opened my eyes about how wrong I was thinking regarding harmonization and how little they teach you just to get by in classical training. Not even properly a week into it, barely grasping the basics of 12 bar jazz-blues and here I am thinking there is so much more to learn and I already learned more than I ever could in a traditional classical environment, because all of this would be considered 20th century and ‘contemporary music’ by their standards.

Revisiting this video just enforced my feelings about it. You don’t ‘need’ a fifth, you don’t ‘need’ a root, you don’t practically need anything as long as it’s implied in context or as long as what’s being played points to the general direction of the implied harmony. Thank you for the video, Adam, it’s still a banger.

[nou]

Ok so when jazz artist play notes out of the chords they’re “playing liberated dissonance” and “doing non functional harmony” but when *I* do it I’m “playing the wrong notes” and “not qualified for the band”

[iJiggsy]

Jazz Level 6: “Ah yes, this chord is made of C H O R D”

[TheRealApricat]

When I hear jazz harmony to this degree, it reminds me of an old friend who always overused olive oil when she made Italian food
Just because you have a whole bottle of the stuff, doesn’t mean it needs a whole bottle of the stuff
Love the channel Adam, love the content, and I love hearing what I don’t like so I better understand what I do like 💜

[zeta]

I love when I'm improvising cool dissonant things, then I take the time to see what I played and it's always amazing to see that "your brain" play harmonics automatically (because I'd never have the musical knowledge to choose those harmonics consciouly). Jazz is amazing

[Spongebob-lfdn]

"I'm not off key, I'm playing level 7 Jazz"

[njrous]

Herbie later said he realized Miles actually said "Bottom" notes and not "butter" and so he revolutionized harmony based on mishearing something lol. True jazz things

[Sedyon]

First level of jazz harmonization: pleasant music, smooth chords

Sixth level of jazz harmonization: *INFERNAL CHORDS THAT WOULD DRIVE ANYONE CRAZY*