Reharmonisation Part 5: Sustaining Harmony I

This post is part of a multi-part tutorial series about Reharmonisation. The previous posts can be accessed here.

One of the situations where (re-)harmonisation makes the most sense is when the original harmonic idea sustains for longer on the same chord. If you want to create interesting music, it might not be the most attractive way to sustain in one static harmonic situation for four or more bars.

So in these cases, it might be suitable to try and fill up that time with something more interesting. Basically, you can employ three fundamental strategies in such a case:

1. Radical Reharmonisation: You simply ignore the original harmonic idea and actively search for a new harmonic path to take there, effectively eliminating the sustained harmony.

2. Reharmonisation based on the sustaining harmony: You employ strategies that keep changing the colour but not the general function of the sustaining harmony

3. You look at the harmony that follows the sustaining one and come up with a harmonic path to it that you use to fill parts of the original sustaining harmony.

The first option is the most "invasive" variant and what to do there is incredibly depending on the material that you work with so we will focus on the second option in this part. The third option will be covered in the next article.

In Jazz theory/harmony there is a device that is called "line cliché". A line cliché at its core is a melodic line that moves in (often chromatic) stepwise motion over a sustaining chord.

One of the most well known line clichés is this one:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/bond-line-cliche/s-D6nx2AdP9pi

The harmony effectively sustains on one chord (Cm), however through the motion of the highest note, this static chords gets a constant change of hue which keeps it interesting.

And essentially this is already the concept of a line cliche. You use chord or tension notes as a vehicle to constantly change the colour of a chord without changing its actual fundamental quality as a chord. Through the linear connection, they get a melodic quality and get justified to our ear.

Here are a few more that work very well in a sustaining minor tonality:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/line-cliche-minor-1/s-9AYkJ2249U4

In this case we have a descending line that uses the different hues of the seventh and sixth.

You could theoretically expand this further chromatically but it gets a bit "on the nose" through this:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/line-cliche-minor-1b/s-4CE0cC9avTK

Similarly useful are ninths:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/line-cliche-minor-2/s-OMUIOP5fZY8

The line cliche doesn't need to be on top, but can also be within the chords. In the following (more filmic sounding) example, we use the "trailer chord" line cliché that employs the 11:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/line-cliche-minor-3/s-mCEPQNlGiSO

Theoretically, you can use that line cliche as a source for accompanyment material (like staccato 16th figures that would work well in the above progression).

The linear connection of a stepwise motion helps to sell these line clichés to the ear but they are not absolutely mandatory  as the following example shows:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/line-cliche-minor-4/s-jUryC8mm9PK

Effectively, line clichés do work and exist on any chord type. Here are a few common ones in major:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/line-cliche-major-1/s-1o1Au0vFInU

The above one is the major version of the James Bond progression. The following is a line cliché which uses the ninth.

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/line-cliche-major-2/s-OkLyk5wgOWo

In major you should avoid the dominant7 in your line clichés as they do change the type of the chord to a dominant. This only works if you can use it as a vehicle to a plausible chord:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/line-cliche-major-2b/s-Hkp8WSySxSS

Again, the more filmic sounding line clichés are the ones that use more ninths or sus4 like this one:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/idea-cue/s-6Sy6L4j4wcf

And also, on Dominant chords, you can use line clichés. In fact they are even more flexible there as you have a greater choice of tension notes:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/line-cliche-dominant-1/s-Y68sXhq0Pfb

And again, the sus4 is also usable:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/line-cliche-dominant-2/s-UXrtiqLW8Vi

All the examples above are just a fraction of possible line clichés. You might have noticed that some of these sound more "filmic" than others. The essential part to make them work is to of course have a melody on top that doesn't contradict those lines or maybe even uses them as structural elements.

Another way to look at sustaining chords is to repurpose them into pedal points and change the harmony with this strategy in mind:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/pedal-point-1/s-SAl383VdYzM

You can even employ unexpected modes:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/pedal-point-2/s-HYb5GCFsOUR

The bottom line here is to understand that any static harmony has a potential to get some movement. A lot of these things that we covered today are also applicable as source for inner chord movements that don't necessarily need to become a standalone melody line. Very often, just a single motion is enough.

For instance if you have a C major sustain for just one bar, try moving one voice from the 9th to the root, or the root to the majo7th within this bar. So effectively, take small "building blocks" from the line clichés that we looked at today:

For instance compare these two examples:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/inner-movement/s-MHpxy4L4Qay

It is not advisable to try to move every sustaining harmony. In some cases, it is more musical to let the music rest on a harmonic situation (e.g. at the end of a phrase). But the power that arises from these things mentioned today can influence a great deal of how interesting your music is sounding.

One thing that I have learned over the years that it is possible to make any chord progression interesting sounding without even touching the radical tools of reharmonisation but by just employing the things that we covered today and in the previous parts.