Stevie Wonder "Too High"

Stevie Wonder is one of my favorite songwriters. His adventurous chord progressions and melodies really excite my ears and mind. Stevie is one of those artists that can make complex ideas sound simple and approachable.

In this week's podcast, episode 15 of Anatomy of Tone, I mentioned one of my favorite Stevie Wonder songs, “Too High,” from the Inervisions record released in 1973.

There is a lot of amazing tips to gather from the song “Too High”. I’m going to just focus on one for this article and what I discussed in the podcast.

Stevie uses whole-step movement to walk down the chords in the lyrical “Too High” section.

The 1st chord is a F#maj7#5, a mediant (3rd) away from A minor 9—more on that in a second.

The biggest takeaway from this chord cycle is that Stevie is descending whole steps to reach a destination. The root note movement is the whole tone scale.

It’s hard to say what Stevie was thinking when he wrote this song, so I’m going to offer some ways to consider it. I believe the destination was in mind and how much time there was to get to our destination.

There are three measures of music before we return to our main chord, which is an Aminor9—two bars of 3/4 time and one bar of 2/4 time.

The plan could have been to get to Bb, which is a half step above our destination chord. So within the time frame, Stevie used whole steps to reach the Bb (whole tone scale).

The root movement to get to the A minor 9 chord is:

F# E D C Bb

Stevie throws on a curve ball though before we return to A minor 9. He uses an altered V chord before the A minor 9. After we reached our Bb chord, he placed an E7 before the A minor 9 which is a V to I resolution. A very strong move and cadence.

Simply put, he descended in whole steps to a destination and then used a V chord to get to the minor i chord. This is the most fundamental way we can think about it to use in our own music. Of course, the destination chord is important. But first, we must understand the basic movement.

Up to now, I didn't disclose the full character of the chords so as not to obscure the root movement. In this case, the root movement is the most vital ingredient, and the chord colors are just that, colors.

Concerning the whole step movement chords, Stevie uses maj7th #5 chords.

We start on F#maj7#5 and then move to Emaj7#5, Dmaj7#5, Cmaj7#5, Bbmaj7#5.

This is a move we call chord planning, essentially switching between chords in parallel movement. Or a simple way of saying it, taking the same shape and moving it up or down. In this case, by whole steps.

Stevie uses an altered dominant chord for more spice when we get to our V chord. The E7 chord is an E7#9#5 chord. Basically a dominant chord with an extra tense note for more heat.

I know this is a lot to take in if you don’t understand jazz or classical theory.  Let’s create a simple plan to use this technique in your song or composition.

Step 1: Know your home or destination chord.

Step 2: Know how many bars or beats you have to reach your home chord. Would you like to play 4 chords to get “home” or 2? So pick an arrival time and chord, and don't forget we will also use the V chord before our return home and it needs to be counted in the allotted time.

Step 3: Look at how many whole steps away it would take to reach our home chord and what those root notes are.

Step 4: Apply chord colors to those root notes. Use the same chord style or “color” for all descending chords.

Step 5: Play a V chord (dominant chord of the home chord) as our last chord before returning to the i chord. You can add spice to your V chord. Although. Stevie uses a 7#5#9 chord, you can experiment with other dominant chord variations.

One reason Stevie chooses the 7#5#9 chord is that #5 becomes the 3rd of the i chord. In other words, there is a common tone between those two chords linking them together.

With the whole step chord colors, you can get as fancy or as simple as you want. Stevie chose the major 7th sharp 5 chords for their specific flavor. You can experiment with different chord types, but remember to keep the chords the same and use planning to move them by whole step.

Looking to get deeper into music theory or songwriting and compositions? Reach out to discuss lessons.