This etude is a modified excerpt from my e-book, Four-Note Diatonic Triad Cells: Comprehensive Studies in Leading Tones. Mastery of the secondary triads (triads formed from each degree of the scale) in both major and minor keys is absolutely essential  to fluent and melodic improvisation, in jazz, as well as many other genres of improvised music. In this particular etude, I’ve converted each triad into a four-note cell by adding a tone that connects it to the next triad in the scale by a half-step. This added note is either chromatic (aka, a “passing” tone) or is taken from the scale itself.

If you look at the top staff in the example above, you can see that the first triad (C major) is converted into a four-note cell, then connects to the next triad (D minor, the triad formed from the 2nd degree of the C major scale) by a half step, i.e., C# moving to D natural. This pattern continues until all seven degrees of the C major scale are covered. Notice that the first triad cell in the second measure (E minor), and the triad cell in the last measure (B dim) don’t use chromatic passing tones, as they both are diatonically a half step from their next scale degrees. Each triad cell in the top staff is connected by “lower neighbor” notes.

In the bottom staff of the example above, I’ve connected each triad cell by “upper neighbor” notes.

In the rest of the etude, I present all of the inversions (marked by numbers at the beginning of each one) of these secondary triads formed in this manner. If you play through all of these, you’ll most likely hear some familiar, “bebop” sounding melodic movement, as well as some more modern, perhaps “angular”, sounding movement. Studying and practicing your scales in this manner will give you lots of melodic material to draw on when improvising, as well as challenge and improve your technical fluency. I’ve purposely put all the exercises in C major. Feel free to transpose them into other keys as you get them in your ear. If you’d like to explore this concept further, please consider my e-book, Four-Note Diatonic Triad Cells: Comprehensive Studies in Leading Tones, where you’ll find a wealth of possibilities and practical exercises to bring these possibilities into your improvising.

Click below for a free, downloadable pdf of this etude:

Secondary Triad Cells in Major, Part One: Ascending pdf

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