How to Understand Extended Chords

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Video Transcript

One of the biggest benefits of studying in harmony and theory for me personally has been the ability to build and name any chord. No, I am not saying that I can play any chord but if you play a chord, I can give it a name and I am going to teach you how to do that here.

This all starts from the major scale. We can give each note of the major scale a number. So, let us do this in the G. Here is on active of a G major scale. For each of these notes, we can give them a number. The first note G is number one, A would the be second, B is the third, C is the fourth, D is the fifth, E the sixth, F sharp is the seventh and the root note G is an active above where we started. Eight notes above the first G.

The intervals in the first active are known as simple intervals. If we continue above the active, these are known as compound intervals. So, after G on the fifth fret of the D string we get the note A. So, this the ninth interval, D is the tenth, C is the 11th, D is the 12th, E is the 13th, F sharp is the 14th and then we are back to G. Two active above where we started. So, on the first octave we have the simple intervals and the second octave we have the octave we have the compound intervals.

Okay, so what can we do with this information? Well, extensions can be added to the basic structure of the seventh chord to create whether or known as extended chords because the third and the fifth are already part of the basic chord the extension that we are left with are the 9th, 11th and the 13th. And that it is! We will never have a 12th chord, we will never have 14th chord but we can have 9th, 11th and 13th. So, what I am going to do now is I am going to play this blues in beat that we have jam on earlier and I am going to add some 9th, some 13th to the chords. So, check it out with the backing tract and then we will come back and talk about it some more.

All right, so here I was playing over the blues in beat. The first chord is B7. Now, what I did was I added the 13th to this chord to create an extended chord. The 13th the same as the sixth in the lower octave in the key of B that note is G sharp. So, I added G sharp on the ninth fret of the B string. That will give me a B 13th chord. So, I was just doing a little idea where I went from the B7, B13 and I also use a B7 chord by stretching my fourth finger up to the tenth fret of the B string which is the note A. So, by adding the 13th we have created an extended chord does not alter the quality of the chords it is still a dominant chord.

Now, the second chord was E7 rather than playing a simple E chord I was playing an E9th chord. The 9th of E is the same as the second in the lower octave. The second of E is F sharp. The 9th of E is also F sharp. So, here is one way to play an E9 chord with basically and E7 shape with a 9th added to it. So, I had E, G sharp, D and F sharp. We can also get the B on top. So, there is an E9.

Serves the same function as an E7 chord is just a little spiced up. We can also add the 13th. The 13th as I mentioned earlier is the same as the 6th in the lower octave and the key of E the 6th is C sharp. So, from this E root I am going to add C sharp on top to give me the 13th. That is up on the 9th fret of the high E string so there is an E 13th chord.

So sometimes I was playing E13th, sometimes E9th. And then, I did the same thing from F sharp. So, that is a great way to spiced up some basic chords by adding extensions. So, there are two things that we need to know with regard to extensions. First things is the highest extension gives the chord its name, in other words if we have a 13th in the chord as well 9th the chord is refer to as 13th chord. If we have let say a 9th and 11th in there the chord will be an 11th chord the highest number wins. And the second thing to remember is the extensions do not change the quality of the chord. They do not change the function of the chord. If we add let say, a 9th to a dominant chord the chord is still dominant. If we add the 9th to a major chord, the chord is still major. If we add the 9th to a minor chord, the chord is still minor.