Upper Structures for Major & Minor Chords
In the past lessons on upper structures, we have explored them over dominant chords. In this lesson we apply the upper structure triad concept to major and minor chords.
Print Out The Upper Structure Cheat Sheet
You can find a link below to the Upper Structure Cheat Sheets which detail the type of chord, the scale degree to build the triad off, and finally the extensions and alterations included.
Upper Structures Over Dominant Chords
In the past lessons on upper structures, we just looked at dominant upper structures. For example, over C7 we can play a major triad built from the #5 to get an altered #5-#9 sound. Or we can play a major triad off the #11 to get a #11 – b9 sound. We also looked at adding these upper structures to a 251 progression.
Previous Lessons On USTs
If you don’t understand this theory, I would recommend watching the introduction to upper structures lesson. Applying upper structures to dominant chords is the most important and useful application so I would advise that you learn dominant upper structures first.
Lesson Downloads
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Major and Minor Upper Structures Cheat Sheet File Type: pdf
Related Lessons
In this lesson we explore some advanced applications of upper structure triads in context of jazz standards we have covered.
Learning and memorising all of the upper structure triads is a daunting task! This lesson introduces the upper structure cheat sheet.
Upper structure triads are complex sounding altered dominant chords. They will add texture and sophistication to your playing.
Practice Tips
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Print off the major/minor upper structure cheat sheet.
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By visualising the chord in two separate parts, it gives us access to a winder variety of voicings for the same chord.
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We can manipulate a simple voicing by inverting and doubling notes of the upper structure.
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Try harmonising a melody line of a jazz standard using major and minor upper structures. First analyse the notes in the meldoy, and then try and match them to the chord tones in the upper structure of the chord.
- We can invert a single upper structure and also mix multiple upper structures to get the correct tone at the top of the voicings.
Wow – Even though I knew and had used a few shortcuts for extended chords I had never thought of actually treating them as separate triads with the ability to achieve such big sounds by inverting the upper triads. Really enjoying trying this out, thanks Hayden!
Glad you enjoyed in James!
Yes you can get some really big sounds, and also more flexibility with voicings by looking at the chord as 2 separate structures… some of the formulas are the same too, for example, major triad off the 9th will give you 13#11 sound over both major and dominant chords… so there is some overlap with dominant uppers structure theory.
Cheers,
Hayden
Hi Hayden. Can you send me the lead sheed for this lesson. The chead sheet I have. It would be cool if you had the lead sheed for this.
HI Jimmy,
Apologies for the late reply, this comment slipped past me.
Yes we actually have a tutorial on that tune where you can access all of the notation from the lesson.
Here’s a link: https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-piano-lessons/time-remembered-tutorial/
Cheers!
Hayden