From the course: Music Theory for Songwriters: Harmony

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The color tones

The color tones

From the course: Music Theory for Songwriters: Harmony

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The color tones

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We refer to the ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth, as well as the fifth in many cases, as color tones. They add harmonic color to chord Rather than spelling out every single chord that uses these tones, I'll briefly discuss each color tone and the different variations of them. In order to give it some context, instead of citing popular songs for every example, when appropriate, I'll show how each color tone could appear in a common progression we've already looked at: The ii-V-I. And for further clarity, I'll always build the one chord of the ii-V-I on a root of C. I'll do my best to voice these as clearly as possible, but keep in mind there are many, many ways to voice extended chords. While I'll be showing all these chords voiced solely on the piano, I could just as easily spread the notes out across various instruments or even the human voice. One way to use this approach in a song would be to play up to the seventh of a chord on the piano, and then sing one of the color tones in the…

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