Connecting Chords

Chapter 15 — Part II, Motion: How Does the Bass Travel?

The Question

How can the bass make four separate chords sound like one continuous sentence?

The Mental Model

A connection is the route between harmonic destinations. Roots tell us where each chord begins; connecting notes explain how one destination becomes the next. A useful route respects the current chord, aims clearly at the next structural note, and has a contour the ear can remember.

This is the first chapter in this Part to work with two levels of structure at once instead of one. The beat-1 roots are structural — they’re the notes a listener could strip everything else away and still recognize the harmony from. The connecting notes are not decoration in the sense of being optional; they’re a different job entirely, explaining how the bass got from one structural note to the next rather than what the harmony is at any given instant. Stepping and Leaping, from the last two chapters, are both available as the actual material a connection is built from — a route can walk there by adjacent motion, cover the ground in a single reach-and-recover leap, or mix both — because Connecting Chords is a job description, not a specific interval pattern.

The common error is assuming any note occupying the space between two roots counts as connecting something. A note that doesn’t move toward the next destination — one that wanders, repeats, or drifts away before snapping back — fills the beat without doing the job; it’s activity without direction. A genuine bridge has to actually aim somewhere, which is why the annotation in the exercises below always names both what the note is and where it’s headed, not just that a note is present.

The Microscope

Both versions keep Cmaj7–Am7–Dm7–G7, the right hand, rhythm, and register fixed. A uses only roots. B uses the same roots on beat 1 and fills the space between them.

A — Destinations only. Each chord begins clearly, but the spaces between them say nothing.

Four sustained chord roots beneath Cmaj7, Am7, Dm7, and G7.

X:1
T:Connecting Chords — roots
C:Alessandro Bessi
R:Concept study
M:4/4
L:1/8
Q:1/4=88
%%score { RH LH }
V:RH clef=treble name="Harmony"
V:LH clef=bass name="Bass"
K:C
[V:RH] "Cmaj7"[EGBc]8 | "Am7"[ACEG]8 | "Dm7"[DFAC]8 | "G7"[DFGB]8 |]
[V:LH] "^destination"C,8 | "^destination"A,,8 | "^destination"D,8 | "^destination"G,8 |]

Listen

Use Harmony only to confirm the progression is unchanged. With Bass only, identify the beat-1 destinations first, then hear the remaining notes as routes rather than four unrelated fills.

See

Destination and connection are different levels of the line. The roots carry harmonic structure; the intervening notes carry direction. A connector is not automatically chromatic and does not need to touch every available scale tone.

Play

Three-note bridges. Land on every root, then use only two notes to reach the next one.

A four-bar connection exercise over the shared functional progression.

X:1
T:Three-Note Bridges
C:Alessandro Bessi
R:Exercise
M:4/4
L:1/8
Q:1/4=88
%%score { RH LH }
V:RH clef=treble name="Harmony"
V:LH clef=bass name="Bass"
K:C
[V:RH] "Cmaj7"[EGBc]8 | "Am7"[ACEG]8 | "Dm7"[DFAC]8 | "G7"[DFGB]8 |]
[V:LH] C,4 B,,2 _B,,2 | A,,4 C,2 ^C,2 | D,4 E,2 ^F,2 | G,4 D,2 B,,2 |]

Vary

Keep every beat-1 root. Reverse the direction of one bridge while preserving its rhythm and destination.

The Music

“Common Thread” is an original eight-bar jazz study in Bb major, swung throughout, over a ii-V-I-vi cycle (Cm7–F7–Bbmaj7–Gm7). The harmony repeats; the second pass reorders each bar’s chord tones and varies the bridges without moving the structural roots.

Common Thread. Two routes through identical harmony.

A swung eight-bar functional-jazz study in Bb major with compact piano voicings and a connected monophonic bass.

X:1
T:Common Thread
C:Alessandro Bessi
R:Jazz study
M:4/4
L:1/8
Q:1/4=88
%%score { RH LH }
V:RH clef=treble name="Harmony"
V:LH clef=bass name="Bass"
K:C
[V:RH] "Cm7"[c_eg_b]8 | "F7"[fac'_e']8 | "Bbmaj7"[_bd'f'a']8 | "Gm7"[g_bd'f']8 | "Cm7"[c_eg_b]8 | "F7"[fac'_e']8 | "Bbmaj7"[_bd'f'a']8 | "Gm7"[g_bd'f']6 "Cm7"[c_eg_b]2 |]
[V:LH] C,2 _E,2 G,>E, | F,2 A,2 C,>B, | _B,2 D,2 F,>^F, | G,2 _B,2 D,>B, | C,2 G,2 _E,>E, | F,2 C,2 A,>B, | _B,2 F,2 D,>^F, | G,2 D,2 B,2 "^arrival"C,2 |]

Reflection

Which bridge sounds inevitable because it moves by step, and which works because its contour balances the phrase? The next chapter asks what happens when the bass isn’t traveling alone — Contrary Motion adds a second, independent voice to this same question, and a bridge that sounded inevitable on its own may need to answer to a right hand moving the opposite direction at the same time.