ShmoopTube

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here's your shmoop du jour brought to you by tone clusters part of [Person pouring tone clusters into bowl]

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a healthy balanced breakfast this question is based on an excerpt

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that will be played twice determine the intervals being played and choose the

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correct notation for the audio sample

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alright which of the following is played hmm and here are your potential answers

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well that's one jazzy chord anybody else feel like shaking [Man dancing]

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their hands vigorously just us? spoil sports but what makes that chord

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sound so jazzy easy it's a dominant seventh chord remember that's a regular

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major triad topped by another minor third interval or the seventh of the [minor interval falls on regular major]

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chord put it together and what have you got bippity-boppity-boo or you know a

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dominant seventh chords potato, potato anyway all we need to answer this

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question is to see which of our choices is a dominant seventh chord easy peasy [Seventh chord having photo taken]

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lemon alright all four answers are the same dominant seventh chord on e just in

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different inversions, that chord just can't stand still okay so we have to figure

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out if what we're hearing is in root position or an inversion which is

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basically musical gymnastics yeah we can determine which order the notes are [People in gymnastic formation]

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stacked in by listening for the tone cluster and no despite what we all want

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to believe that's not a cereal, it's actually a way to describe two or more

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notes that are very close together....listen again do you hear the

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slight tension in this chord now that interval is a major second which means

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we have a tone cluster alert but a dominant seventh chord in root position

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is made up of ascending thirds and has no secondsand therefore no tone clusters [Thirds appear on chord]

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that eliminates A... A first inversion dominant chord does have a tone cluster

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which results in the major second being perched on top of the chord listening [Tone cluster appears on top of the chord]

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closely are there any notes below the tone cluster....

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hmm we can't spot any hiding down there which means that answer B is upside down [Man looking under a bed for notes]

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inside out and incorrect answer C.. a second inversion dominant chord should

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also have a note below the tone cluster but just like a classroom when the teacher

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asks for a volunteer and it's still pretty quiet down there so C isn't our

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answer.. in this case our answer is that rare third inversion found only in jazzy [Third inversion appears in jazz town]

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jazz town and in answer D the chord is stacked on top of the seventh which

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gives us a major second between the seventh and the eighth or tonic that's

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what we call the jazz hot it's time to dig into a big bowl of tone clusters

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there people chow down [Woman with a box of tone clusters]

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