Resolving to a Note Vs a Chord

Expanding on the concept of resolution.

Starting With Resolution

"Tension and release" is a major theme in all great music. In fact, it is the most important theme because it turns notes into music. Try thinking of a note. Just one lonely note. Now add another. Those two notes could have duration and rhythm, but the "music" created by two notes is limited. You're either with note #1 or note #2. That’s all there is to it. Unfortunately, there are songs out there that use this format and they are boring to say the least.

As we add more notes, we gain the ability to create tension. Adding notes does not necessarily create tension. Instead, we take the following pattern of intervals and alter it. Below is the pattern that uses the least amount of tension by using a process called "stacking thirds".

We can start with any note and then stack thirds. This means we go up in pitch from the starting note by a Major Third (M3) or a Minor Third (m3) and then alternate between types of "thirds". By playing notes from this pattern, we can use chords and/or melodies that avoid tension.

Acknowledging Two Camps

I should mention one little thing before we move on. In the world of Jazz, a chord like CMaj7 uses degrees 1-3-5-7 which is part of the pattern shown above that starts with a Major Third. Maj7 chords are common and many songs end on them. Classical music has a different view. The seventh degree note is called the “Leading Tone” because it literally leads us to the Tonic or first degree note. If you ended a song on a Maj7 in Classical music, then you would be committing quite the sin. The Leading Tone pushes us to the Tonic so strongly that it is viewed as an unresolved note in Classical contexts and must be resolved. The common way of doing this is to move that note up half a step to the Tonic. For me, it all depends on how you want to tell a story. If you want to wrap it up with a nice bow, then resolve any leading tones. On the other hand, if you want to leave your listener with the feeling of an open window letting a breeze in at the end of your story, then by all means use a Maj7 and let that leading tone work for you.

Breaking the Pattern

To increase tension, we use a note that is not part of the "stacked thirds" pattern. A chord like G7 accomplishes this with the note F. I’ll notate the breaks in our stacked thirds with an asterisk.

Another common chord is the half-diminished. Bm7b5 breaks the pattern at the note F again, but this time the break in the pattern occurs closer to the root note.

It appears that the closer the "break" in stacked thirds is to the root, that more tension is created. Let's check out some Phrygian chords like Em7, E7sus b2, and Em7(b9). Em7 uses stacked thirds by alternating m3 and M3 intervals. E7sus b2 is a funky Phrygian chord that crunches the b2 note of F against the root note of E. Then there’s this TriTone interval from degree b2 to 5 that brings in more tension because of the way TriTones literally divide an octave. It isn’t until we get to the m3 interval from B to D that we get back into the pattern that would be found in an Em chord. Then there’s Em7(b9). If we omitted the note E, then this looks just like a G7 chord. This means that we can think of Em7(b9) as a type of slash chord in the form of G7/E, which means “the G7 chord OVER the note E”.

By looking at chords as sets of intervals we can see how well they stack thirds and how the location of breaks in stacked thirds adds types of tension. If you were to say to a Jazz musician that you want to use Em7(b9) or G7/E in part of a song, then that would be a fairly standard way of adding some tension because the tension (or break point) is far away from the root. But if you suggested E7sus b2, then that would be considered a “spicy” chord. Theres a whole lot going on right by the root, so you may want to follow up an E7sus b2 with Em7 to drop the tension while retaining E as the root note.

Now we don't need to get too involved in details of why this creates tension. Instead, let's focus on the concept that the more we break the pattern of stacked thirds, and/or placing the break close to the root, will increase tension. Doing the reverse will therefore decrease tension. Take a chord out of “C Harmonic Major” like G7(b9) followed by G7 and then G.

While the b9 note of Ab is not right next to the root, it is still adding tension by breaking the pattern of stacked thirds. G7 restores part of the pattern and G completes the restoration. But we don't have to use the same chord to reduce tension.

Resolving to a Note AND a Chord

Many resolutions involve a movement to the Tonic. Take G7 to C for example. We could play just the note C or the chord C as C-E-G. The important part in such a movement is the root note and the fifth degree note, which for a C chord is C and G. Another way of thinking of this is that G7 moves to its root of G and a fifth down to the note C. It’s as if G7 is fine with whatever you use as long as you use C as the target note. After that, just be sure to include G7’s root of G in any chord that follows it.

So G7 can be followed by C, CMaj7, Cm, Cm7, C7, Cadd9, CMaj79, Cm9, and so on because they all use C as the root and G as the fifth. The trick here is that some resolutions sound better than others.

Above, we have G7 moving to CMaj7. Notice how the M3 interval from G to B is in both chords. If we continued the CMaj7’s stacked thirds, then we would move a m3 interval from B to D. This m3 interval is found in the G7 chord. The break occurs when we use another m3 interval from D to F. When we move from G7 to CMaj7 we can think of it as dropping the break and extending our alternating / stacked thirds down to C. In other words. G7 loses both m3 intervals and then extends down a m3 from G to E and continues down a M3 from E to C. This is an unconventional way of thinking about resolutions when voice leading is the norm but bear with me.

Below we have G7 moving to Cm7. The notes Eb and Bb are not part of the C Major scale, which is where G7 and CMaj7 are coming from. What I want to point out is that the M3 interval in G7 from G to B is moving to a m3 interval from G to Bb. This is what makes moving from G7 to Cm7 a weaker resolution than G7 to CMaj7. The only thing that makes G7 to Cm7 work as a resolution is that Cm7 uses alternating / stacked thirds. Cm7 uses a m3, M3, and then a m3 to keep tension low.

Did We Forget About the Single Note Resolution?

Resolving to a note is fine too. There’s nothing wrong with that. But what if you used a note as an anchor point? Without using diagrams I want you to think about an Am7 chord with the notes A-C-E-G. Ok? Good.

Now focus your attention on the note C. What would happen if we put C in the bass? That would make a C6 or Cadd6 depending on the way you learned chord naming. G7 to C6 as C-E-G-A sounds great. It’s a C major chord with stacked thirds… but then there’s that note A. From G to A we have a whole step or Major Second (M2) interval. What do we do with that if we like the sound of C6, but don’t want the tension from breaking our stacked thirds?

Not to worry. C6 is an inversion of that Am7 I wanted you to think about. Imagine playing G7 followed by just the note C. Then sustain that C note and fill in the rest of the Am7 chord with A, E, and G. In this way we take G7, play the C note to imply that a C major chord of some type will happen, but arrive at a minor chord. The other thing that makes this work is that Am7 is the Tonic chord of A Natural Minor, which is C Major’s relative minor. It’s like saying, “Yeah, we’re in C, but A Minor is a cool cousin to meet.” On top of all that, the Am7 chord uses stacked thirds, so we keep the tension low.

Overall, I would say that resolving to a note can be more helpful than a chord because a note can connect us to many chords. Try out movements like G7 to a chord that uses C. While doing that be sure to look at the intervals in the chord that uses C. Do you have stacked thirds? Is there a break point? Is that break point close to the root or far away? Did you use an inversion or slash chord to control tension through intervals? Whatever you experiment with, make sure to write it down so that you can learn from your own trial and error.

If you’re still struggling with finding a way to make all this useful, then try playing the five bar example below. It quickly takes a G7 arpeggio that build into a chord that resolves to the note C as the end of the second bar. Bar three builds an Am chord around the note C from the end of bar two, which then turns the Am into C6 by putting C in the bass. The note G is used just to touch back on that note before finally resolving to a C major chord.

Ultimately this is G7 to C with some fancy footwork in between that uses a note to resolve to, chords build from and around that note, and breaks in stacked thirds to control tension. Let me know what you think of it and anything else in this lesson by using  the comments below.

Thanks for reading and happy practicing.