Diminished 9th chord?

[Bob L]

In the movie Rhapsody In Blue, a young George Gershwin is seen shopping his new tune, Swanee, around Tin Pan Alley. Several people look at the score and comment, "hmmm.....a diminished 9th!".

I can't quite figure out what a diminished 9th is, nor can I identify in which measure the supposed chord appears. Is this just made up dialog or is there a real musical basis for the remarks?

 

[jazztele]

Hmmm...

Not common used terminology...

Could be a 7b9. Could be a diminished chord with an included ninth. Could even be something like a m9b5...

I've never actually looked at the score for "Rhapsody."

 

[klasaine]

You can voice a dim9 ( low to high - C A Eb Gb D) and it's probably referring to the main lick or riff of Rhapsody, which is a big dom.b9 chord. But it's just some Hollywood script BS to make it sound 'complicated' or 'new'.

Try this: Bb Db E C low to high and move that parallel for main 'blues' melody in RinB.

There's no º9 chord. Note wise it's just (if you're thinking from C) a B7(b9#9) or D7b9 chord.

*It 'could' possibly be referring to a m9b5 chord as JT just mentioned?

 

[Bob L]

I was thinking along those lines jazztele and klasaine but couldn't come up with anything definitive. BTW, the song in question is Swanee, not Rhapsody.

 

[Larry F]

I'll bet it is an inside joke. The interval of a dim 9 is the enharmonic equivalent of an octave.

I recently saw an old Columbo episode where he uses the phrase "mound of venus" as an art term. Which it is, of course, but not in the way that he used it. Also, don't ask me how I came across this, but there is a cartoon where for one frame, Bugs Bunny's private parts are exposed.

 

[klasaine]

I'll bet it is an inside joke. The interval of a dim 9 is the enharmonic equivalent of an octave.

That was my initial thought - lol!

 

[Wally]

IN effect, technically a diminished 9 chord is built in this manner, correct???
1, b3, b5, bb7, 9.

 

[klasaine]

Our point is is that we don't know because it's not a term that's used.

It could be a fully º7 with an added 9th or it could be a fully º7 with a diminished 9th which could be either a b9 or a bb9 - in which case it's just the octave.
You see the potential confusion?

 

[Wally]

Thanks for clearing that up, Klasaine.....and I am being serious while I am laughing. You know that I am not as the country song says..."trained in theory and composition". (IIRC that line..) It is just that I happened to be looking at "The Original Gig Bag of Picture Chords", which was in a box of stuff I bought from a frustrated musician, two days ago...and ran through the key of C. The Cdim7 that is shown there shows a dimished chord with a double flatted 7th. I figrued that the 9th would be a step above the tonal center or key note or whatever one calls it..the C in this case making the 9th a D.
So, I guess I'll just wait until I see a chord written and then I"ll figure it out. HOpefully it will be in staff form so I don't have to worry about whether the 9th is flatted or not or double flatted or not. 'Til then, yes, I can see how it must really BE confusing. Everytime I think it is simple, it turns out to be confusing. LOL
So, if you had a chord chart for some new music in front of you and the chord is indicated 'Cdim9'......what would you play the first time through...without asking any questions? JUst curious....

 

[Valvey]

I thought I spotted that chord on the Gershwin piano roll version of the song, but I guess not.

 

[klasaine]

Bars 15 and 16 of Herbie Hancock's 'Speak Like a Child' are an F#º7 with an added (natural) 9th in the melody ... ?

 

[Vegsongstress]

In the movie Rhapsody In Blue, a young George Gershwin is seen shopping his new tune, Swanee, around Tin Pan Alley. Several people look at the score and comment, "hmmm.....a diminished 9th!".

I can't quite figure out what a diminished 9th is, nor can I identify in which measure the supposed chord appears. Is this just made up dialog or is there a real musical basis for the remarks?

On the IMDb website for the movie "Rhapsody in Blue" (1945), the following appears under "Factual Errors" --

"In Max Dreyfus' office, Oscar Levant while looking at George's score of "Swanee" hums a perfect forth (D down to A) and says, "A diminished 9th." In the next scene Max Dreyfus also refers to the uniqueness of a diminished 9th. In Swanee there is no diminished 9th. There are enharmonic equivalents ie. a C# melody against a Db bass which sounds like a diminished 9th. It is acually a sharped major 7th. The interval of a diminished 9th i.e. (C up to Dbb or C# up to Db) does not happen in Swanee. Both a diminished 9th and an enharmonic equivalent will sound like a perfect octave when played eight notes apart."

 

[Leon Grizzard]

We're not supposed to acknowledge your post until you post an introduction in the Welcome section. We're very rule-bound here. Interesting first post though. Two year old thread. How did this come about? Quick, before a mod declares it a zombie and kills it.

 

[dr_tom]

Oscar Levant was a hell of a piano player and musician but also a comedian. Possibly it was a bit of a musical joke?

 

[Larry F]

I made a "joke" in one of my recent posts, by referring to the magnitude of something as having "Gaussian proportions." I heard a character, a math genius, in the hacker movie "Sneakers," utter this phrase in a talk. I read that the line was written by a mathematician as a sly tribute to Frederich Gauss, who hasn't received due notoriety for his humongous contributions to math.

In one of Elvis's movies, he is a fish out of water rock and roll musician at a party of hoity-toity intellectuals. One woman says to him, "Brubeck has taken atonality too far, don't you think?" Elvis's character aptly replied with, "Lady, I don't know what the hell you're talking about." (This is all from memory, so who knows how much I embellished it?)

 

[Chris S.]

Two year old thread. How did this come about? Quick, before a mod declares it a zombie and kills it.

I didn't see a thing. CS

 

[slowpinky]

In one of Elvis's movies, he is a fish out of water rock and roll musician at a party of hoity-toity intellectuals. One woman says to him, "Brubeck has taken atonality too far, don't you think?" Elvis's character aptly replied with, "Lady, I don't know what the hell you're talking about." (This is all from memory, so who knows how much I embellished it?)

here it is.... I start my second semester class with this clip..

 

[klasaine]

Love that clip!
Not all zombies are bad.

 

[Vegsongstress]

We're not supposed to acknowledge your post until you post an introduction in the Welcome section. We're very rule-bound here. Interesting first post though. Two year old thread. How did this come about? Quick, before a mod declares it a zombie and kills it.

Sorry, I didn't notice that there were "rules" here until you mentioned it. As Claude Debussy was reputed to have said once (in a book of his piano works that I used to have was a quote that went something like the following), "I broke all the rules, but I got the sound I wanted."

 

[D_Schief]

Veg -- I think Leon has his tongue planted pretty firmly in his cheek, as about the only "rule" in these parts is one of mutual respect. If you keep bringing us interesting quotes and info, you'll fit right in. Welcome!