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Originally posted by Kysora Anyway, so as I'm understanding it, are 6/9 chords just supposed to be used exactly as the triads I'm adding the extra two notes to? So, again in the key of C, if I use a 6/9 chord on the fifth and use G-B-D-A-E, I should treat that just like I would any other V chord? I sort of felt like having those two notes forming a perfect fifth above the triad would allow you treat it as a different chord than just the triad beneath them. Maybe I was wrong.

Yes and no - it really depends on where and how you use it. In the case of using a 6/9 chord for the dominant (V), you'll probably find that the extensions (6 and 9) "soften" the dissonance and, therefore, the tension and wanting to resolve back to the tonic (or vi). That's because our ears are used to hearing the dominant chord want to resolve, particularly when it's a dominant seven (V7) with that dissonant tritone interval (formed by the third and seventh notes [B and F]). But, replacing the F with an E (and adding an A) to a V chord implicitly eliminates the tritone (or any "inferred" tritone) and makes the chord ambiguous with the other chords, which overall has the effect of decreasing the tension and, thereby, the V chord wanting to resolve back to the tonic. Now, that's neither a good nor bad thing - it all depends on how much dissonance/tension you want and how much you want the V chord to feel like it wants to resolve to I or vi.

I use a lot of extended chords in my music, and I find that it's very effective to create the extensions by using the extended notes in the melody itself, keeping in mind that there's a grey area between extensions and non-harmonic notes, as opposed to creating extended chords and building a melody out of the notes in your extended chords. Hopefully that makes sense and, of course, there is no "right" way of doing this. But an easy example is, say you are playing a Cmaj triad in the left hand, but your right hand melody is focused heavily on the B and D notes, well, then you're in effect playing a C9 chord.

One thing to keep in mind when it comes to any extended chord is that it's very easy to think of chords as one-bar chunks of notes where all of the chord tones are introduced simultaneously, whereas in reality, notes are arpeggiated or otherwise brought in progressively during the course of a chord's existence. So, for example, you could think of something like a 6/9 chord as a chord that is introduced as simply a major chord (e.g., by arpeggiated the triad in the first half of the measure), then add the 6 and 9 notes either through arpeggiating through them, adding them to the melody, introducing them to a pad, etc. in the second half of the measure.

Also, you might find this thread useful and somewhat relevant, although not really prescriptive in terms of how to build chord progressions using extended chords. You could probably find a lot more info that is relevant to your question by studying up on jazz theory.

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Last edited by cryophonik on Dec-26-2010 at 19:01

Yeah I think I know a good bit about theory but using extended chords is kind of lost on me.

Every time I use 6/9 chords I always use, again back to the C example in C-E-G-D-A, the A as a melodic note for at least part of that measure just because I love the way that sequence sounds. Very open and lush at the same time.

I'll just have to experiment with it some more I guess. Thanks for the link to that thread too, I can least use that as a starting point.