naming chords?

[Christian Miller]

But I like delta for a triad, And the minus sign sometimes indicates a flatted note other than the third. Jazz notation is consistently inconsistent. Saw a chart the other day with “Ab9” — is that Ab7 with an added ninth or A7b9? Had to check the piano score to figure it out …

Haha… I mean the normative use if the A7(9) but you never know lol, there’s some chord symbol madness out there.

Especially when classically trained musicians try to write chord chord symbols. Good grief, had that a couple of times in education. They don’t have a clue.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mr. beaumont]

Re: delta ^, the way I interpret it usually...

F is F major
F^7 is F major 7
F^ is F major, but a 7th is fine

And any of them mean play some kind of F major, use your ears, the 6 is probably always cool, etc...

But I'm sure this isn't foolproof

[Mick-7]

According to this: Why Lead Sheets? | Berklee

The last two chord names on that chart are way overblown:
Bb/C7 = C11
C7/D7 = C13#11/D (bass). Too many notes to translate and/or the reader may interpret it as play a C7 and then a D7 chord.

I don't recall ever seeing: sus2

N/C - Chord without harmonic context or a "tacet" chord.

From the Oxford dictionary: tacet (music term), adverb: (as a direction) with the voice or instrument silent.

"the concert finishes with the piano playing tacet before doom arrives."

I'll have to use that one: "piano player, just play tacet chords on this tune"

[pan60]

i hate sounding like a moron but i must ask what is a deta?

[orri]

i hate sounding like a moron but i must ask what is a deta?

Delta is the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. It looks like a triangle (equilateral or isosceles with a horizontal line at the bottom)

I was first taught it means major 7. But you can usually also play a major triad or major 6 if you prefer.

[wolflen]

and of course we have chord charts in Roman Numbers

I7 ii7 iii7 IV7 V7 vi7 viio7

Back when I was doing some studio work,,I always had to make sure what chord names really meant.

Most of the time these were just demos for a singer/songwriter and they would have charts they
wrote themselves. So sometime a C7 is not a C7.

[starjasmine]

Consider the following:

C6 = Cmaj triad with a major sixth = C E G A

What happens when we take the same notes and put A on the bottom? A C E G = A-7

The context - what the listener hears - determines the chord symbol to use in order to communicate the intent of the composer or arranger to the reader of the chart.

Chord symbols are a guide, a suggestion. The player may or may not make additional choices regarding voicing or chord substitution.

[rpjazzguitar]

I sometimes see one chord written directly above another chord - in big band charts.

I think that the guitar is best off playing the lower chord in those situations, but that's just based on a couple of experiences with this notation. It sounded like the upper chord was in the horns and the bass was playing the root of the lower chord.

[pan60]

Delta is the forth letter of the Greek alphabet. It looks like a triangle (equilateral or isosceles with a horizontal line at the bottom)

okay yea that is what i see a lot

[emanresu]

Delta means maj7. Not maj triad.

Maj triad is the root letter with nothing added.

It is not a system. It is mayhem.

edit: i was explained in school that delta was used to make it easier to distinguish Maj from min. M and m are bad. - ?(can't even insert delta here) is way easier. That was the reason for bringing in the delta.
In jazz, most of the time you forget all about the triads, sometimes they can even ruin your comp. So, the delta is Maj7 or more.

[starjasmine]

I sometimes see one chord written directly above another chord - in big band charts.

Those are polychords. For example,
D
C7
is another way to write D13#11, as Mick posted earlier.

C=root
E=3rd
G=5th
Bb=7
D=9th
F#=#11
A=13

Delta means major 7th; it says nothing about the third. So...
A is major triad unless we add -, + or °
Thus A(delta) = A C# E G#
But A-(delta) = A C E G#

BTW, (delta) is opt-J on mac, and ° is opt-shift-8 on mac. (You can do these on Win, too, but my Win laptop is not turned on ATM)

Sorry for the (delta) notation. Apparently the JGF char set does not support the delta char, because it appeared correctly when I typed the post but got turned into question marks when the post appeared on the site.

IDK when delta started being used - I first saw it in Jamey Aebersold books.

[pan60]

? °
ha cool to know i just hope i can remeber it.
is the ° a circle? dim i assume?
so when i do the option j i get the delta symbal but when i post it changes to a ?
just me of doing something wrong?

[starjasmine]

? °
ha cool to know i just hope i can remeber it.
is the ° a circle? dim i assume?
so when i do the option j i get the delta symbal but when i post it changes to a ?
just me of doing something wrong?

Yes ° is diminished.

You're not doing anything wrong. The reason the delta changes to a question mark is because the character set that the website uses does not support the delta char.

You might be able to work around this by choosing a different font in the font menu but theres no guarantee that what you see when posting is what will show up on the site, and I didn't want to fiddle with it.

[pauln]

“What’s in a name? That which we call a chord
By any emoji would sound as sweet.”

[ragman1]

be ecuse my ignorance on this i hope its not to basic.
sometimes i get hung up n small issue like this.
high all i am new to learning to read music and trying to understand things as i am going along.
one thing i wanted to ask is ( as example ) is Amin the same as Am?
if so why would it be labeled a Amin on one bar and Am on the next?

also when a chord is labled ( as example ) Amaj that is a chord that i would think would be made up of a 1, 3, 5 would that be correct? basic i know i want to make sure i have this all correct. spent to many years learning wrong.
so if i add a extention say a seven the it would be Amaj7
if i add a six would it be Amaj6 or just A6? this is causing me a small degree of confusion not is learn playing or reading just in proper naming. i see as example A6 written in one of my studies and the i see Amaj7 or Amaj9 so why would the A6 not be labled Amaj6?
thank pan

You need a reference chart. There are several ways of writing chords. You need to brush up on them.

Every chord symbol found on lead sheets

[Christian Miller]

The last two chord names on that chart are way overblown:
Bb/C7 = C11
C7/D7 = C13#11/D (bass). Too many notes to translate and/or the reader may interpret it as play a C7 and then a D7 chord.

I don't recall ever seeing: sus2

N/C - Chord without harmonic context or a "tacet" chord.

From the Oxford dictionary: tacet (music term), adverb: (as a direction) with the voice or instrument silent.

"the concert finishes with the piano playing tacet before doom arrives."

I'll have to use that one: "piano player, just play tacet chords on this tune"

1) you get some more complex polychords in some more modern tunes. The slash chords in question suggest a specific voicing
2) the term tacet is universally understood by reading musicians


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Christian Miller]

I’m using ? as a chord symbol for major seventh from now on


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mr. beaumont]

I don't recall ever seeing: sus2
:

Ah, you've been able to avoid playing in a church. Good on ya.

[Christian Miller]

Ah, you've been able to avoid playing in a church. Good on ya.

Aren’t ’worship band’ chord symbols really weird?

(Tbf this info comes from Reddit, so….)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mr. beaumont]

Aren’t ’worship band’ chord symbols really weird?

(Tbf this info comes from Reddit, so….)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Everything is just add and sus, but it all just means play the 1st and 2nd string open on every chord.

(I never actually played in church, church is...not for me. But I taught several people who did.)

[Mick-7]

Ah, you've been able to avoid playing in a church. Good on ya.

Oh, I see, thanks. I bet Freud would've had fun with that, "Vat is this fascination with suspended chord tones you have? I think this may be worth exploring."

[Christian Miller]

Everything is just add and sus, but it all just means play the 1st and 2nd string open on every chord.

And do so through all the Strymon pedals.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jim Soloway]

If I see an A6, I assume that's a major chord plus a 6.

If I see an A13, I assume it's a dominant chord with a major 3rd, a flatted 7th and a 13 (or 6)

And I don't like triangles or any other symbol that is either difficult or impossible to type on a computer without specialized software. If you really need to say major, them Maj is my preference (although in most instances with a major chord you can get away with not saying anything other that the chord root note. If nothing is added, it's pretty much always a major 3rd and an optional major 7th).

[StoneWaller]

Everything is just add and sus, but it all just means play the 1st and 2nd string open on every chord.

(I never actually played in church, church is...not for me. But I taught several people who did.)

My father plays "praise" music (insert Homer Simpson shudder here) in his Sunday morning worship band, and his charts are riddled with add9 and sus2 chords, but both are always notated the same. G2, C2, etc. I had to look it up as it's a bit confusing to me, and I guess that's a thing in contemporary worship music.

"And do so through all the Strymon pedals."

I play a radio game on road trips. You flip through the channels, naming a song as quickly as possible. Not bad at it, but I can determine the praise music genre within a second without fail. Huge reverb, splashy drums, Taylor acoustics....But there's something else I can't put my finger on that makes it instantly identifiable to my ear. Idk, maybe it's the aura of acute positivity, which I'll kindly have none of thank you very much.

[jameslovestal]

If I see an A6, I assume that's a major chord plus a 6.

If I see an A13, I assume it's a dominant chord with a major 3rd, a flatted 7th and a 13 (or 6)

And I don't like triangles or any other symbol that is either difficult or impossible to type on a computer without specialized software. If you really need to say major, them Maj is my preference (although in most instances with a major chord you can get away with not saying anything other that the chord root note. If nothing is added, it's pretty much always a major 3rd and an optional major 7th).

For the 3rd, if nothing is added, it is always a major 3rd, but in my experience, that isn't the case for the 7th.

E.g. A7 is a dominate 7th chord. The 7th is flat. If the 7th is natural something is added; Amaj7.

Thus A6 is 1, 3, 5, 6, while A7 is 1, 3, 5, b7. I don't know the history of why that is, but I do wonder if it was associated with the blues, where the Dominate chord is king. I.e. easier to write only two characters (A7), and only add extra ones for the few times (if ever) a major 7th is used.