Breaking Down Altered Chords

Some musical concepts are intimidating. For me, altered chords were one of them. Then recently on Instagram stories, we asked for topics you wanted us to talk about in our blog. One of you suggested this topic.

I'm not going to lie: altered chords is a complex harmonic structure. But I'm going to try to explain it here in the simplest way possible.

In this article we are going to clarify some of the most frequently asked questions regarding altered chords:

👀 What are they, anyway?

👀 When should you use altered chords?

👀 How do you use altered chords?

Fair warning: once you understand altered chords, there's a big chance you fall in love with them 🤭. It's a beautiful technique that enables many possibilities when composing and trying to make smooth arrangements in your sheet music.

What is an altered chord?

If you search online, you'll come across various approaches. There are explanations that come from classical musicians, jazz musicians, and so on. However, the fundamental concept or idea remains the same, regardless of how many words are used to describe it:

🤯 Just like with any other chord, an altered chord comes from a scale.

As you might imagine, the altered chords derive from the altered scale. The name refers to the fact that most of the tones have alterations.

🤦 Artists though they may be, musicians aren't very creative when it comes to naming things! (And I confess to being part of the stereotype – personally, what I like least about my songs are their titles.)

The altered scale

The altered scale is composed as follows:

Root - b9 - #9 - 3 - #11 - b13 - b7

In other words:

Root - b2 - #2 - 3 - 4 - b6 - b7

🤔 Wondering why b9/b2 #9/#2 #11/4 and b13/b6 are equivalent?

It's simple. Let's just count.

Do you see it?

D is the 2d and 9th of C, F is the 4th and 11th of C, etc.

To continue, below you will find the altered C scale. Press play.

What do you notice?

First of all, there is no fifth!! It also has a lot of alterations, as mentioned above.

Other names for this scale: Ravel scale, Super locro, Locrian flat 4, or even the Pomeroy scale.

💡For a bit of practice, open your music writing software and recreate this scale.

How do you build an altered chord?

The altered chord is a dominant 7 type of chord derived from the jazz minor scale called altered scale.

To understand how to build an altered chord, let's use the example of C7alt.

First, let's think about the "unaltered" chord: C7.

Do you remember how it is composed?

C7

Root - 3 - 5 - b7

C - E - G - Bb

Now, do you remember that the altered scale does not have 5?

Thus to create the altered chord we're going to remove the 5 and alter some of the tones. The tones to alter are 9 - 11 - 13. We can alter all of them or just one, depending on what we want and what the song needs 🙃.

C7alt

Remove 5

Root - 3 - b7 - b9 - #9 - #11 - b13

C - E - Bb - Db - D# - F# - Ab

Let's listen to those chords (C7 and C7alt):

By the way, we could write it C7(b9-#9b-5or11#), but that's just too long; it's better and more practical to write C7alt.

Note: It is possible to find a score with b5 instead of #11. Don't be confused by that – there is still no 5. Some musicians do that to highlight the fact that there is no 5th, preventing the interpreter from accidentally playing it.

💡Again, for some practice I invite you to open a music score in Flat and recreate those chords. Remember you can add the chord names for more clarity (tutorial).

The power of altered chords

Since the chord has many accidentals, the possibilities are limitless. It allows you to resolve harmonically in many ways. It's really a perfect chord to enrich your compositions when making sheet music. Plus, an altered chord doesn't tell you where to go, which translates into more freedom.

No wonder it's widely used in jazz 💁.

Instead of thinking of the altered chords as complex, I invite you to think of them as "open" chords. My guitar teacher once told me that chords are like water. You can find them in different states: solid like ice or fluid like water. The more "solid" the chord, the more limited the options are going to be. He told me to always look for "open" chords with that fluid sound that give me more freedom to express myself.

🤩 What a great lesson!

When to use altered chords

There really is no set formula. In music, anything is possible, as long as we find an elegant way to express it. The altered chord allows you to solve the harmony in different ways. However, I will share some of my favorite resolutions to give you an idea. But please don't stop there 🙅. Dare to explore, and eventually you'll find the ones that work for you and that you like best.

My favorites

1. IIm7b5 - V7alt - Im7

2. IIm7 - b117alt - Imaj7

3. V7alt to a major chord

You can see and listen to some examples of those resolutions here:

Final thoughts

The beauty of music comes from a mix of prediction and surprise. Contrast makes a piece great. When we listen to a song, we hope to connect with the music while also being surprised. Altered chords make this possible, and that's why I love them!

One last thing: Don't be afraid to experiment and fail. It's all part of the process.

See you next time,