What does Eb?+4 mean?

[benjaminjoe]

I'm fairly new to the jazz GUITAR world,and i'm getting acquainted with reading charts; namely the aebersold's autumn leaves one, where i found this symbol over a bar (i.e.; EbΔ+4).
Now, in the aebersold "NOMENCLATURE" sheet it says that Δ+4 can mean also:

Cmaj+4, CM+4, CΔ+11,CΔb5 and Cmajb5

I found all of this over confusing,and any help would be appreciated,since the symbolism can be pretty confusing fpr a novice like me. I'm not really devoid of music theory,but please be clement in your explanation.

[pkirk]

it means the chord made up of the pitches

Eb, G, A, D

A good place to start is to find voicings with the A as the highest pitch, once your ear hears that, you'll "know" the sound.

People often refer to this as a "lydian" sound: if you look up what lydian means you'll get the reference

[pkirk]

PS technical things you might want to ignore:

The triangle is synonymous with "Maj". The "+" is used as shorthand for "#" in this context, which is confusing, since it sometimes is shorthand for "Augmented" which means use a #5. Also: 4=11, so #4=#11.

Furthermore, don't be surprised if this thread migrates to a discussion about whether #4 and b5 means the same thing. In some contexts it is useful to distinguish them, but for simple tunes there is no need to distinguish them since a chord voiced with a #4 and a 5 tends to sound a bit weird if that's not what you are going for.

[fumblefingers]

EbMa7#11

the triangle is short hand

[benjaminjoe]

So in my reference chord book (Al Di Meola's A Guide to Chords Scales Arpeggios) that would be an Eb7M(b5). And if i'm not mistaken a diminished 5th is the same as an augmented 4th, as they are enarmonic; is that correct?

In these days i'm trying to match the chords presented in the aforementioned books with the symbols used in the aebersold's series. I'm not by any means neglecting the theory behind,as i'm learning it gradually, but i want to have a lot of chord shapes under my fingers ang getting the feel of many standards. My problem is the confusion generated by the use of symbols in these books.

[benjaminjoe]

i'm sorry i replied before seeing the replies under the short one.

[M-ster]

Just adding to what's been said:

... in the aebersold "NOMENCLATURE" sheet it says that Δ+4 can mean also:

Cmaj+4, CM+4, CΔ+11,CΔb5 and Cmajb5

Any charts you may find can have many different chord symbols, depending on who prepared it, what was their experience and schooling, and what is their personal preference/style. Yes, it can be confusing, and yes, all these symbols can be equivalent.

My own preference would be to identify the basic, 7th chord harmony and let the players fill in the extensions, based on their experience. (Experienced jazz musicians are going to do this anyway -- why complicate the chart(s)?) So, I would have named this harmony Cmaj7. If I really felt it necessary to identify specific extensions, I would have used Cmaj7(#11).

So in my reference chord book (Al Di Meola's A Guide to Chords Scales Arpeggios) that would be an Eb7M(b5). And if i'm not mistaken a diminished 5th is the same as an augmented 4th, as they are enarmonic; is that correct?

Enharmonic, yes. And depending on circumstances, you may be describing augmented 11ths and diminished 12ths. Again - personal preference - I refer to extensions by the way they stack up in tertiary harmony: They're not 2s, 4s, and 6s; rather, they're 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths. (Although, granted, if your base chord is a C6, there's a convention for simply calling it C6 as an alternate to the base Cmaj7.)

[benjaminjoe]

Just adding to what's been said:


Any charts you may find can have many different chord symbols, depending on who prepared it, what was their experience and schooling, and what is their personal preference/style. Yes, it can be confusing, and yes, all these symbols can be equivalent.

My own preference would be to identify the basic, 7th chord harmony and let the players fill in the extensions, based on their experience. (Experienced jazz musicians are going to do this anyway -- why complicate the chart(s)?) So, I would have named this harmony Cmaj7. If I really felt it necessary to identify specific extensions, I would have used Cmaj7(#11).

Well,i guess it's part of the craft. I'd better get accustomed to it! thanks everyone for the quick and useful replies. Time to get back on the instrument

[keith]

it means the chord made up of the pitches

Eb, G, A, D

A good place to start is to find voicings with the A as the highest pitch, once your ear hears that, you'll "know" the sound.

People often refer to this as a "lydian" sound: if you look up what lydian means you'll get the reference

Please correct me if I have this wrong but isn't this a Eb maj7 chord with a #4 so it would also include the 5th, Bb, in the voicing. I know to play this we frequently will drop the 5th for the #4 but just from a technical standpoint isn't there a 5th present?

[pkirk]

Please correct me if I have this wrong but isn't this a Eb maj7 chord with a #4 so it would also include the 5th, Bb, in the voicing. I know to play this we frequently will drop the 5th for the #4 but just from a technical standpoint isn't there a 5th present?

I predicted the discussion going this way, see above ;-)

I don't want to take a stand on this question as I rarely use voicings that have both a 5th and #11, and in most contexts I think of them as clashing. Presumably there is some common accepted music theory answer to your question, and presumably it is "yes"

[wolflen]

on some sessions I will ask the keyboard player how they interpret the voicing MA7#11(5th included) vs MA7b5 ..

for me in casual settings I drop the 5th .. most players I have worked with do also

[pkirk]

So in my reference chord book (Al Di Meola's A Guide to Chords Scales Arpeggios) that would be an Eb7M(b5).

I'm not sure about this: It is rare that the "7" would precede the "M" so that unless you meant to write EbM7(b5), the book you are referring to is using notation that I rarely come across.

It is common for people nowadays to follow the convention M-ster describes:

you give one of

CMaj7, Cmin, or C7

to indicate "major 7th", "minor" and "dominant" chords,

and then, if you feel compelled to add extensions, you add them in parentheses (or superscripts in parentheses), for example
CMaj7(#5#9)

or

CMin7 (b5)

also, it is common for the symbols

Δ, Maj, M to be used for Major,

-, mi, min, m to be used for Minor

and just "7" to indicate dominant. Although the symbol "alt" also indicates dominant (with altered 5&9)

I have a pet peeve against the use of M for major and m for minor, it is hardly more work to write Maj and Min, and makes the chart much more readable.

You might need to know is that "o" means diminished and "+" means augmented, and finally since a min7(b5) does not exactly fit one of the three categories (Major, minor, dominant) it is sometimes denoted by a circle with a line through it (and called a "half-diminished chord")

[mr. beaumont]

It means Lydian.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

#11 and 5th? It's so much easier on piano: G F# B C# D -- is that not a cool chord? On guitar, I would leave the root to the bass and play xx4637.

[cosmic gumbo]

I often use an awesome sounding quartal voicing that uses both the 5 and #11.
x x 8 8 10 10

[mr. beaumont]

That's a great one...

I call Big Daddy's awesome sounding voicing a "song ender" because there's not way i'm grabbing that on the fly!

[medblues]

That's a great one...

I call Big Daddy's awesome sounding voicing a "song ender" because there's not way i'm grabbing that on the fly!

I got confused with that first expecting Eb as the root than I realized he changed the root to G. Then I decided to transpose it to Eb and add the root:

11 x 12 14 11 15

Easier for my short fingers and still sounds awesome

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I got confused with that first expecting Eb as the root than I realized he changed the root to G. Then I decided to transpose it to Eb and add the root:

11 x 12 14 11 15

Easier for my short fingers and still sounds awesome

Sorry about that transpose to G. For an arped song-ender I can grab it in G: 3x4537

[vhollund]

EbMaj7#11
With both included 5 and #11

XX1335

Technically b5 means no P5
But often i found that Maj7b5 just meant Maj7#11
Depends on the context