Quartal chord application.

[sebstyoung]

Need views on this topic.
E.g C quartal = 1 4 b7   or   do fa to   or   C F Bb

[GospelEngineer]

Are you asking what the applications are?

[sebstyoung]

yea.

[under13]

I rarely hear this in music. The only examples I can think of is Karen Clark Sheard's "I owe", and Carl Thomas' I wish. That's if my idea of what quartal chords are is correct.

[berbie]

They seem to be more jazzy to me.  They are notes a fourth apart.  They have a dissonant sound to me. If a person were playing right  hand jazz runs, they could do them over quartal chords very well. Since they don't sound quite right with any note, they don't sound quite wrong with any note.(to me) They are easy to play.  just hit a note and its flat seventh with your thumb and little finger.  The other fourth will be very close to your index finger.

[jonesl78]

Csus7 - can be used to resolve to the F major chord

Ab6/9 - use it as a jazzy substitution for the Ab major chord

[sebstyoung]

I used them chromatically, to replace sus2 chords and as my major13 or dom13 chords.

[sebstyoung]

Quartal chords are used in so-called "modal" jazz. (I
realise that's a contentious concept...)
The idea - as I understand it - is that tertian chords have
too clear an identity, and remind us too much of
functional harmony. Any tertian chord we hear tends to
suggest a context, a role in a sequence. And modal jazz
is not about chord sequences.
Eg, in Miles Davis "So What", the harmonies in the head
are (mostly) quartal: Em11 to Dm11, each voiced R-4-
b7-b3-5. That's all 4ths bar the M3 on top - which
actually identifies the chord(s).
A fully quartal chord is impossible to clearly identify,
because (a) there is no clear root, and (b) the chord
language we have is all based on tertian conventions.
Eg, if you have a chord voiced E-A-D-G, what would
you call it? It could be quite a few things, including
partial chords. (Normally, context would determine the
answer.)
Another example from Kind of Blue is the piano chord
played over the intro to "All Blues" - a rootless 6/9
chord. The mode is G mixolydian, but the piano
doesn't pay a G7 chord. It (plays something like) D-E-
A, while the horns and bass spell out riffs from the
scale. So a "G7 sound" kind of emerges from the overall
mix of notes.
This is the idea - again as I see it: Modal jazz is melodic
in emphasis. Harmony (such as it is) is static. Any
chords that are played are more like random bunches
of notes from the scale than identifiable chord forms.
The only non-random element is the avoidance of 3rds
as much as possible. So chords can use 2nds and 5ths
as well as 4ths.
A typical phrygian modal chord is the susb9, voiced
(eg) 1-b9-4-5-b7 - quite a lot of 3rds in there, but in a
deliberately ambiguous mix.
I'm not sure how (or if) quartal chords can be applied
in functional harmony (key-based songs) - simply
because they don't have clear functions.
(OK, now those more knowledgeable than me can take

[sebstyoung]

found that on a jazzy forum.

[GospelEngineer]

That pretty much covers it. I use them the same way the others in the thread have mentioned, for chromatic walk ups/downs and for 6/9 chords. They're great for soloing over too since you can pretty much play anything.