Entropic Jazz: Piano Chord Extensions

Recently, something I wrote was, "Individuals are not islands." Over years, I've been learning to exercise a lot of relativity in my perspective. Widening my lens to include as many worlds as possible—of people, communities, spaces I cared for. This was partly for survival reasons, and partly for the sprawling ways I grow within myself. Exercising relativity became necessary to make room for the multiplicity of my own body—an unfolding of many selves.

It was a relief to discover that one, two, three, infinitely many forms can exist in the same body in ways that otherwise appear impossible, nonsensical. A lot of the time these selves can appear to contradict one another, creating discord and dissonance—but once I realized that seemingly conflicting things can actually coexist in beautifully unexpected ways, it became a lot less of a problem and more of a fascination. The unpredicted were points of play. Entropic jazz.

In considering jazz, I turned to the piano—an instrument I’m very familiar with through a classically trained childhood. I know very little about jazz—but from a starting point of curiosity, I taught myself the basics of chord extensions, common in jazz and blues.

Chord extensions start with a standard three-note chord (a “triad”) and add additional notes on top in consecutive thirds, adding increasing complexity to an otherwise basic chord. I learned that, if you play a chord in its highest extension (adding more and more notes until you reach “the 13th”—beyond which the same notes get repeated in higher octaves), you arrive at a point where you are technically playing every note within an octave’s scale at the same time.

I didn’t understand. Somehow it was mind-breaking—that it was possible to play every note in a scale simultaneously, and instead of a train wreck, you get a stunningly rich chord, peering over the edge and yearning for resolution. In my childhood, playing every note in a scale at once would have been disastrous. I was accustomed to a specific idea of what sounds were “good” or “harmonious” and precise combinations to create them.

So, I found myself wondering about accidentals and in-betweens—what else was “acceptable” in ways I didn’t understand? What else was possible?

When two unexpected things are placed next to one another, when dissonance and clashing adds to the vocabulary rather than gets barred from it, the possible permutations become limitless. It makes way for interesting juxtapositions, unusual combinations, and much more complexity and nuance. I am approaching my life, and the worlds, communities, relationships I enter in much the same way: as an exercise of possibility, relativity, and adaptability.