Augmented reality (part 1)

Hi !

Today I'm back with a beefy subject. We'll talk about a really important color in modern music and that is dear to me: the augmented sound.

As the major third is a very powerful interval, the augmented triad brings a perfect balance between 3 notes and some kind of mystery too.

Basically the augmented triad is made of two major thirds piled up on one another.

The symetry of this triad brings limitless chords, phrasing and composition possibilities, and also paved the way to pieces of music that made history, such as "Giant Steps" by the great John Coltrane.

The purpose of this lesson is to:

• identify the main positions of the augmented triad
• train the ear to this specific sound 
• check how the augmented sound can be applied on 3 scales
• practice a few phrasing applications with the augmented sound

Here we'll talk about E augmented as an example.

In a nutshell, E aug can be summarized as the infinite possibilities of three notes (E, G# and C) played together.
Here we'll follow the transposition from E in major thirds pattern: E, G#, C, E, G#, etc...

Which means that E aug is understood as E/G#/C triad in this blog post.
A really cool exercice would be to play E aug with E/C/G# instead of E/G#/C !

( fig. 1 ) allows to practice the main positions of E aug triad on the guitar, listen to the augmented sound and figure out the symetrical architecture of this specific triad.

( fig. 2 ) shows the main E aug triad positions in upward and downward patterns.
Note on the last beat the triad combination E/C/G# that I mentioned above. The next step would be to transpose this combination on the ( fig. 2 ) pattern !



Now let's talk about chromatism, maths and...family.

We all know that the chromatic scale is made of 12 notes. The augmented triad is the perfect addition of 3 notes with 2 major thirds that can be transposed symetrically.
As a consequence we come up with four triad combinations (12 = 3 x 4) with the same symetrical architecture :

• E/G#/C : E aug
• F/A/C# : F aug
• F#/Bb/D : F# aug
• G/B/D# : G aug

If you push G aug a half-step higher you reach G# aug, which is just E aug transposed one major third higher.
 
My personal organization of augmented triads is to split them in "brothers" and "cousins":

• E aug, G# aug and C aug are "brothers" because they originate from the same source (or parents?) : E, G# and C notes.
• E aug, F aug, F# aug and G aug are "cousins" because the indirectly come from the same source: the architecture of the augmented triad in major thirds.
• With ( fig. 3 ), you can hear and notice the 4 groups (or "cousins") I've just mentionned.

Now let's play music with the augmented triad and try to apply the sound in a cool way.

( fig. 4 ) is the basic A melodic minor scale position.
( fig. 5 ) is a phrasing example with the augmented sound on A melodic minor with the E aug triad.
You can play the melodic minor scale in many chords situations, playing this example on a plain Am chord works fine.

( fig. 6 ) is the basic A harmonic minor scale position.
( fig. 7 ) is a phrasing example with the augmented sound on A melodic minor. with the E aug triad. With this scale, I like to pivot on the minor 6th and the major 7th to emphasize the harmonic minor sound.
Like ( fig. 5 ), playing this example on an Am chord is a nice and simple approach.

( fig. 8 ) is the basic E augmented scale position.
This 6-note symetrical scale is useful to play on augmented chords and others chords too.
E augmented scale is : E, G, G#, B, C, D#
Another point of view is to consider this scale as a combination of E aug and G aug (or B aug) triads

( fig. 9 ) shows a phrasing example with the E augmented scale.
This phrase works nice on a Am chord. The scale allows to bring chromatisms in a structured way


Have fun !

To be continued...

Jean-François

Don't hesitate to drop a comment to let me know about your thoughts on this blog post. THANKS !

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