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Upper Structures: Upper Structures Are A Nice Sounding and Simple Way To Voice Altered Dominant Chords

Upper Structures are dominant chords with an added triad that is a tritone above the dominant seventh's third and seventh notes. They are used to voice altered dominant chords and the triad's root is specified by a number relative to the dominant chord's root. Examples are provided of different upper structure chords and voicings over common jazz chord progressions.

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Matt Ball
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493 views2 pages

Upper Structures: Upper Structures Are A Nice Sounding and Simple Way To Voice Altered Dominant Chords

Upper Structures are dominant chords with an added triad that is a tritone above the dominant seventh's third and seventh notes. They are used to voice altered dominant chords and the triad's root is specified by a number relative to the dominant chord's root. Examples are provided of different upper structure chords and voicings over common jazz chord progressions.

Uploaded by

Matt Ball
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Upper Structures

Upper Structures are a nice sounding and simple way to voice altered dominant chords.
They are simply a triad over a tritone.

They always have a 3rd & 7th in the left hand (which is a tritone apart in a V7 chord) and
some kind of triad in the right hand. The triad you play is specified by a number which
indicates the root note of the triad relative to the root note of the overall V7 chord. And the
triad can be played in any inversion (though you should generally keep the top note in
your left hand and the bottom note in your right hand no more than a Perfect 5th apart).

US Chord LH RH Chord RH Notes


US II C7#11 E-B♭ D D-F#-A
US ♭III C7#9 E-B♭ E♭ E♭-G-B♭
US ♭V C7♭9#11 E-B♭ G♭ D♭-G♭-B♭
US ♭VI C7#9♭13 E-B♭ A♭ E♭-A♭-C
US VI C7♭9 E-B♭ A A-C#-E
US Im C7#9 E-B♭ Cm E♭-G-C
US ♭IIm C7♭9♭13 E-B♭ D♭m F♭-A♭-D♭
US ♭IIIm C7#9#11 E-B♭ E♭m E♭-G♭-B♭
US #IVm C7♭9#11 E-B♭ F#m C#-F#-A
US VII C7sus C-G B♭ F-B♭-D

Voicing ii (So What) V (US) I (Quartal)


Basic Chord Progression Dm11 G13 CMaj9
Voicing #1 D-G C-F-A US VI B-F B-E-G# B-E A-D-G
Voicing #2 D-G C-F-A US ♭VI F-B E♭-G-B♭ E-A D-G-B (So What)
Voicing #3 D-G C-F-A US II F-B C#-E-A E-A D-G-C
Voicing #4 D-G C-F-A US ♭V B-F D♭-F-A♭ E-A D-G

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