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Well, as a recovering Jazz snob, I always used to be really focused on sevenths. What I have kind of done since then is to develop a way of thinking of chords, instead of just finding cool chords (though I do that as well). I pretty much never use alternate tunings, not because they are bad, but because I just get confused.
Basically, I think of all chords as triads, and then add tensions. Contrary to contemporary harmonic theory, I really hear the seventh as a tension in most chords, and not as a functional part of the chord. The obvious exception to that, of corse, is dominant chords. I am getting to the point where I even hear the third as optional at times, so I am using a lot of power chords with tensions (like the one Sting used in "Message in the Bottle").
And then there is the Miles Davis quartal harmony. Of corse, traditional chords are built on thirds, but what Miles was sort of exploring (which he got from Bill Evans, who got it from one of the early 20th century classical composers, though I can never remember which one) was building chords on fourth. Well, I always though, hey, that's great, but why only thirds or fourths. Fifths work pretty well too, though it is even less tonal sounding, and more modal sounding (and you end up with that "Message in a Bottle" chord again). sixths of course just end up building inverted and open triads. I have never really gotten into building chords in sevenths, but one certainly could.
But what I have really been doing lately is to try to think more couterpuntally than vertically. Because of my hand problems, I seem to fall into a pattern of a moving part on the lower strings and a pedal tone or pattern on the upper strings.
Don't know that any of that answers the question much, but hey, give a guy a fish, right? I don't know that I could chose any chords I really like the most, but I can certainly explain how I come up with them.
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"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
Basically, I think of all chords as triads, and then add tensions. Contrary to contemporary harmonic theory, I really hear the seventh as a tension in most chords, and not as a functional part of the chord. The obvious exception to that, of corse, is dominant chords. I am getting to the point where I even hear the third as optional at times, so I am using a lot of power chords with tensions (like the one Sting used in "Message in the Bottle").
And then there is the Miles Davis quartal harmony. Of corse, traditional chords are built on thirds, but what Miles was sort of exploring (which he got from Bill Evans, who got it from one of the early 20th century classical composers, though I can never remember which one) was building chords on fourth. Well, I always though, hey, that's great, but why only thirds or fourths. Fifths work pretty well too, though it is even less tonal sounding, and more modal sounding (and you end up with that "Message in a Bottle" chord again). sixths of course just end up building inverted and open triads. I have never really gotten into building chords in sevenths, but one certainly could.
But what I have really been doing lately is to try to think more couterpuntally than vertically. Because of my hand problems, I seem to fall into a pattern of a moving part on the lower strings and a pedal tone or pattern on the upper strings.
Don't know that any of that answers the question much, but hey, give a guy a fish, right? I don't know that I could chose any chords I really like the most, but I can certainly explain how I come up with them.
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
