Music Arranging - The Steely Dan sound. Slash chords. The ''Mu'' Chord.

Hello Steemit!

After a long trip from Buenos Aires , I'm finally in Ecuador . After having a good sip of coffee I thought of putting this lesson together, give you some tricks I've picked up from one of my favorite bands ever: Steely Dan

I could write full articles on just their innovations in music, not only musically, but all of the recording techniques and sounds in which they pioneered , both Walter Becker and Donald Fagen have changed the game of music.

So , today I'd like to talk about some harmony tricks I've picked from them and given them my own little interpretation as I use this type of harmonies all the time in my music and in the things I produce/arrange . I like the fact that it gives the music some interesting colors without making it sound ''too jazzy'' . So , i'll talk today about Slash Chords and what the Steely Dan guys nicknamed as the ''Mu chord''.

C ''Mu Major'' voicings... the chord ''Mu'' doesn't exist but the Steely Dan guys used these voicings so extensively they just started charting them with a µ , making this a ''CµMajor''

-''So , What are Slash Chords?''

Basically we are talking about a chord over a bass note , meaning we are splitting the chord into two parts!, here is a very simple way of interpreting this:

One of the things to notice is that , If we add the bass note to one of the notes of the chord , we get an inversion , like C , C/E , C/G , etc. but if we add the bass note as a note ''outside'' of the chord we change the chord completely. As in the example above C/D could be interpreted as a D9sus4 ( depending on the situation you could get different interpretations , but let's not get confused with this now.)

So , there are many posibilties on what to do with these slash chords, as moving the bass note around a basic chord will generate some different colors so i'd definitely recommend you trying out ''what happens'' if you just change the bass note.

One particular sound that I like a lot is that of using a triad a 5th above the bass note, let me explain :

Let's harmonize the C major scale , If you stack two diatonic thirds over the bass notes you get simple triads, so you get these chords:

C , Dm , Em , F , G , Am , Bdim .

But now , let's stack diatonic thirds from the triad a fifth up meaning you would get these slash chords:

G/C, Am/Dm, Bdim/Em, C/F, Dm/G , Em/Am , F/Bdim .

How do these chords sound? Well , here is a little back to back comparison:

The sound changes considerably , it adds some nice dissonance and color but doesn't really take it to a Jazz direction too much . I personally love this sonority and I use it everywhere as you can pretty much replace regular triads with this chords and most of the time they will work just fine! They were very used in most of the Pop music from the L.A scene throughout the 70s and 80s by guys like Larry Carlton , Lee Ritenour , Jay Graydon and Michael Landau . I Actually picked these voicings from Landau and before knowing the theory behind it I just charted them as "Landau" in my music sheets . Literally ''F Landau'' or ''Cm landau''.. As I then knew the type of voicing I was going to play !

''Mike Landau.. The boss!"

My music is filled with these type of chords , as I don't seem to get tired of using them , like for example in this tune I arranged a couple days ago , ''Reflejos'' , The chorus ends up with two of these type of chords : G#/C# and B/F# harmonizing the ''se apago'' part.

Can you spot it?

Well , where does Steely Dan use these type of chords... well... everywhere! but I'll give you a clear example , let's look at the track ''Josie'' from their 1977 ''Aja'' album:

Basically the verse revolves around a Em7 vamp , but then finishes with a little sequence of chords that go as follows:

D , C , G , F

but instead of presenting them like simple triads , they do a ''fifth triad over bass'' version so it ends up like this :

A/D , G/C , D/G , C/F

Changing it's sound completely and making the distinctive Steely Dan sound, see if you can spot it in the original track , the chords go over the ''comes home to stay , we're gonna park in the street'' section.

''got it?''

Finally here are a couple videos of Donald Fagen himself explaining the harmony and structure of this song , it's a very interesting interview:

Oh , the ''Mu chord" , as I said before , it is some sort of a nickname Steely Dan gave to this sonority , if you wanted to maybe put a formula to it you could say that a Mu chord is made with this formula:

1 , 2 , 3 , 5 ---> C , D , E , G

By adding the 7th you'd get:

1 , 2 , 3 , 5 , 7 ---> C , D , E , G , B

If we take the 3rd out we'd get:

1, 2 , 5 , 7 ---> C , D , G , B --> This is basically a G/C ... the fifth triad over bass chord I talked before , so you can see they are quite closely related.

If you'd like to read about the "Mu'' chord specifically , there are a couple of articles I'd recommend you to check out, here they are!:

http://www.hakwright.co.uk/steelydan/mu-major.html
http://www.hakwright.co.uk/steelydan/mu-major_2.html
http://www.hakwright.co.uk/steelydan/mu-major_3.html

This wraps it out for today! I hope you get some inspiration from these type of voicings and try to apply them in your own music , I certainly enjoy the color they bring in to the general sound of a song !

What do you think of this type of voicings? Have you applied them before? Are you a Steely Dan fan? Any questions I'd love to answer as i really like talking about harmony in general!

Thanks for reading and listening!
Signing off
Pechiche Mena