# Technique, Theory, Playing Tips and Tricks > Theory, Technique, Tips and Tricks >  What is this chord?

## A-board

C#°

I've never seen the "°" in a chord notation. I found it in a version of Georgia on My Mind. Straight c# doesn't fit.

Thanks in advance,

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## AlanN

C# diminished. Flat the 3, the 5, add a 6, you're there.

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## Tom C

What's cool about the diminished chord pattern is, you can moved it anywhere as long as any one of the notes you are playing is a c#. It does not matter which one.

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## Jon Hall

C# diminished 7th. Root - flatted 3rd - flatted 5th - double flatted 7th

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Mike Bunting, 

Pasha Alden

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## EdHanrahan

What I find a bit frustrating:

When fretted players call for a "diminished" chord, they invariably mean the "diminished 7th".  Doesn't necessarily work that way in keyboard circles.  (In the key of C -for simplicity-, "pure" Bdim is B,D,F).  I've asked for clarification on occasion and gotten back a "Well what else IS there?" sort of reaction.

What I find a lot of fun:



> ... you can moved it anywhere as long as any one of the notes you are playing is a c#. It does not matter which one.


Which means that the pattern repeats every 3rd fret as you go up the neck.  A jazzy move is to slide up 3 frets on each beat of a measure - hey, you'll sound like Les Paul!  Off the top of my head, the only example I can cite is the Beatles' version of "Till There Was You".  Not sure if George H. played it that way, but Tom S. in my college rock band sure did!

And for those of us, uhmm, "mature" enough to remember, it was played-to-death by the live studio guitarists on early TV game shows.  Also by the pianists in pre-talkie B&W movies, usually as Nellie Mae was being tied to the RR tracks!

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## Toni Schula

C#°
Looks to me like a programming language somebody developed in a fever

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## journeybear

Hold on just a sec. I've always thought a diminished chord was formed by the notes of the root and the tones up two successive minor intervals (up three frets, up another three frets), also seen as flatting the V tone on a minor chord. Now you're telling me to also add the tone another minor third up?  :Confused: 

This made me want to crawl back into bed, pull the covers over my head, and go back to sleep, hoping the nightmare would be over when I woke up.

I went to the wiki to see what their experts had to say, and there are two entries (naturally): one for diminished seventh chord, one for diminished triad. The first page is devoted to what you guys are talking about**: 1, b3, b5, 6; the second page is devoted to what I'm talking about**: 1, b3, b5. It also contains the following disambiguation attempt: 

_In some sheet music books[citation needed], Cdim or C° denotes a diminished seventh chord (a four note chord) with root C, and Cm-5 or Cm♭5 denotes a diminished triad with root C. However, in some modern jazz books and some music theory literature[citation needed], Cdim or C° denotes a diminished triad, while Cdim7 or C°7 denotes a diminished seventh chord.
_
I am including the "[citation needed]" notes, because that could mean whoever contributed this bit isn't really knowledgeable. Or it could mean he knows what he knows but can't back it up, or simply hasn't backed it up. The problem I'm having here (besides being stunned to learn I may have been operating under a misapprehension for a very long time) is that a designation could exist which *implies* a seventh tone (sixth, really) without saying so in the notation. That is, for example, the designations for C#7, C#m7, C#ma7, and so on, specify the "7" in the chord name. The example cited by the OP does not include a "7", so I'm inclined to believe it isn't called for.

The red flag for me was what Tom C said. This is true for a C#°7, as you guys have it, but not for a C#°, as I see it. That statement is also true for augmented chords, comprised of root and two successive major thirds (root, up four frets, up four frets, also seen as sharping the V tone in a major chord), but that's another matter.

Help!

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## ombudsman

Long story short, altered chords and those that were popularized in jazz are less consistent in their naming compared to the more familiar and basic diatonic chords. It's not like there is some authority or governing body on this. 

You have to go by the context of the musical style and what you know or can see about the notation style of whomever wrote the chart. In a bebop jazz chart I assume diminished chords have sevenths, in a pop song I assume they don't, unless I have other information available.

This isn't really that unusual of a task. In classical notation there are likewise sometimes stylistic elements that are not specified on the page but need to be understood and respected by the performer by drawing on their training and knowledge of the style, composer, and piece, usually having to do with rhythm or with what is possible on a given instrument.

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## EdHanrahan

I feel your pain, JB!

Here's an interesting (hopefully not too frustrating!) observation that I've made since working thru "Piano For Dummies" in the past year or two.  I'll keep this in the key of C for simplicity:

It strikes me that the "pure" 7-based chord in the key of C, being B-diminished (B,D,F), contains 3 of the 4 notes in C's "dominant 7th" chord, being G7.  (Ya know, the chord that 96.713% of the time _forces_ you to go back to the tonic C chord?)  Bdim, in fact, lacks _only_ G7s root, and it's sort of clear that, again in context, your head usually "hears" the root note whether it's actually there or not.

As a result, and only when heard in the context of the preceding music, the Bdim can often, if not usually/generally/always, be substituted for that dominant G7 chord, because it sound so much like it _in context_.

Okay folks, get ready to shoot this next comment so full of holes that it looks like Swiss cheese...

My best guess, maybe to make me & JB feel better, is that, _in popular usage_ as opposed to classical, the diminished *7th* (yes it is double-flatted) is so often implied because the pure "non-7th-ed" diminished chord is sort of extraneous - it sounds _in context_ just like the dominant 7th chord.  (Again, that would be G7 in the key of C).

Of course, YMMV!!!

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## ombudsman

> Okay folks, get ready to shoot this next comment so full of holes that it looks like Swiss cheese...
> 
> My best guess, maybe to make me & JB feel better, is that, _in popular usage_ as opposed to classical, the diminished *7th* (yes it is double-flatted) is so often implied because the pure "non-7th-ed" diminished chord is sort of extraneous - it sounds _in context_ just like the dominant 7th chord.  (Again, that would be G7 in the key of C).


Ok, I'll shoot...

The vii in diatonic major as a cousin if not outright sub of the V7 is very much context dependent.  You're extrapolating generalizations from what is true about the simplest diatonic chords to songs in general.There are usages of half diminished chords (ie the shape of the vii with it's seventh) and the diminished triad that don't sound or function like a V7, not least because they are not based on a vii root and therefore do not have those notes in common with the V7.

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## Bruce Clausen

Chords aren't really made by taking a major chord and then altering notes.  They result from scales.  In the key of C, the natural chord on D is minor, on F is major, on B is diminished.  These are the chords you get by using the regular scale notes-- no notes have been altered.

The diminished seventh chord is formed on a minor scale (the so-called harmonic minor, since it supplies the key's harmony).  In A minor, the natural chord on G# has the notes G#-B-D-F.  All normal ("diatonic") scale notes-- nothing altered, let alone "double-flatted".

(And yes, context and function are important and variable.)

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DSDarr

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## Jim Broyles

The confusion can partially stem from the fact that the vii° chord of a major scale is a diminished triad, but the extension of adding the diatonic 7th makes it a m7b5 chord, which is known in the biz as a half-diminished chord.  In the key of C, this would translate to B D F A - but notice that the A is only the b7 of B. A Bdim7 chord has an Ab there.  When you see a chord symbol C#°, the best bet is that the arranger wants a dim7 there. If you play a C#m7b5 it may clash with the melody.

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## Jim Broyles

> Chords aren't really made by taking a major chord and then altering notes.  They result from scales.  In the key of C, the natural chord on D is minor, on F is major, on B is diminished.  These are the chords you get by using the regular scale notes-- no notes have been altered.
> 
> The diminished seventh chord is formed on a minor scale (the so-called harmonic minor, since it supplies the key's harmony).  In A minor, the natural chord on G# has the notes G#-B-D-F.  All normal ("diatonic") scale notes-- nothing altered, let alone "double-flatted".


I disagree. Every chord  is named  by using the major scale of the root and altering notes.  If you see Bbm7b5#9, you start with a Bb major scale and flat the 3rd to make it minor; add the b7 because  without the designation of "maj" a seventh  always refers to the flatted seventh; flat the 5 and sharp the 9. Bb Db Fb Ab C#. Of course the m3 and #9 are the same enharmonic note, so it's how you voice it, and this chord would probably never be used in an arrangement. Still, that's how you arrive at the notes in a chord.

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Dan Krhla

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## Pete Martin

In Jazz theory, "diminished" implies a 4 note chord 1 b3 b5 bb7.  In Classical theory, "diminished" implies a 3 note chord 1 b3 b5 and "diminished 7th" is the 4 note type.

I think a lot of stuff in Jazz theory has evolved to make reading charts easier on the fly.  It is easier to read the half diminished symbol (the circle with a slash) than all the symbols "m7b5".

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Ryk Loske, 

sblock, 

stevedenver

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## Bruce Clausen

> Every chord  is named  by using the major scale of the root and altering notes.


Very misleading idea.  The chord G#dim7 has nothing at all to do with the scale of G#major (a scale with 8 sharps!)-- it is a diatonic chord in the key of A minor (no sharps).  Much simpler to think of the chords in the context of the keys in which they occur.

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## Jim Broyles

> Very misleading idea.  The chord G#dim7 has nothing at all to do with the scale of G#major (a scale with 8 sharps!)-- it is a diatonic chord in the key of A minor (no sharps).  Much simpler to think of the chords in the context of the keys in which they occur.


On the contrary, since individual chords occur in multiple keys I believe it to be much simpler to know one scale and alter notes. I agree that a G#dim7 has nothing to do with a G# major scale, but if you still use the G# major scale to determine the notes in the chord you will always be able to come up with the notes. I'll pretty much guarantee you that every G#dim7 that has ever appeared in an arrangement was not in the key of  A minor. In 40 plus years of learning and discussing music theory I have never heard  of any other way to name the notes in a chord except by starting with the root's major scale and altering notes according to what the chord symbol says.

BTW, I'd be interested in how a G#dim7 is diatonic to A minor. The diminished triad  in the A natural minor scale is B, but the diatonic 7th  would be Bm7b5. I get that there is a G#  leading tone in the dominant chord (E7) of A minor, but strictly speaking, the G in an Am scale is natural, is it not?

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## Bruce Clausen

Let me see if I can bridge the gap here a little, Jim.  The system of chord names used (mainly) by guitarists uses a certain vocabulary to identify chord colours.  Major 7, dominant seven, minor seven, and so on.  These different colours result from different combinations of intervals: for example a dominant seventh chord has a major third, a perfect fifth, and a minor seventh, counting from its root. In the chord G7, all these notes are diatonic if we're in C major. But if we're in F, that major third is now an altered note, a B natural that disturbs the prevailing F major landscape. (For example, the third bar of Girl from Ipanema.)  So a chord can be diatonic in some keys, chromatic in others. 

Now let's say I'm playing in A minor, improvising over a G#dim7 chord. If I play an F, I'm playing a chord note that is completely at home in the key of A minor. But if I think of that note F using the method you've presented, I have to tell myself to play a double-flatted F double-sharp!

Simpler I think if we recognize the *intervals* of the chord without reference to a notional major scale. So that "dim7" means a series of three minor third intervals, and only that. Diatonic as the VII chord in minor keys, but very commonly used in other situations, where one or more of its notes is chromatic.

By the way, the figured bass system for writing harmony is much older than the pop shorthand we're discussing here.  It is still very widely taught to classical music students. The pop names mean nothing to most of those musicians.

Sorry for taking this discussion probably much farther than the OP intended!

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## Jim Broyles

Okay. Still disagree, and you didn't tell me how G#dim7 is diatonic to Am.
And this:



> Now let's say I'm playing in A minor, improvising over a G#dim7 chord. If I play an F, I'm playing a chord note that is completely at home in the key of A minor. But if I think of that note F using the method you've presented, I have to tell myself to play a double-flatted F double-sharp!


makes zero sense to me. Why do you have to tell yourself anything just because you played an F note over a G#dim7? Play the F and call it an F. I'm just telling you how to name the notes in a chord, not how to improvise. Frankly, if I have to think that much during improvisation, it probably sounds horrible. Besides that, in the G#major scale, you would be playing an E#, not an F. If I were you, I'd still call it an F. Nobody says you have to put your improvisation in the _key_ of the root of the chord you are soloing over, only that to name the notes in the chord you start with the root's major scale. This is correct, no matter how many times  someone says it isn't.

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## UsuallyPickin

People , I just want to say thank you to the gathering here. I'm a theory minimalist but have always found the demented chords , or as G.H. called them "The naughty chords" tuneful in the right place and the arpeggio fun to slip into a break now and again. This kind of discussion with explanations is what keep me coming back to the Café and the Classifieds which keep my wish list current. Thanks People , R/

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## journeybear

Yikes! Glad I skedaddled when I did. It sure got thick in here real quick.

Jim - I understand how you go about building chords, but I don't think you have to drag the whole scale based on the root into it. A G# whatever is going to be comprised of the tones required for that particular chord, regardles of the scale invilved. And if you're using the chord in a song, which is most likely going to be in a different key than thwt chord anyway, I don't see the point of using the scale corresponding to thst chord's root note. The song the OP wqs asking about isn't in C#, for example, but that chord fits the melody at that moment. There are accidentals involved. On purpose, of course.  :Wink: 

Bruce - Saying G# has eight sharps had my head spinning. My experience has led me to believe the maximum number of sharps or flats is six, and then you've gone around the circle and gotten back to none, that is, C. If I go along with you, then what I think you mean is a scale like this: G# A# C C# D# F G G#. I think you want to see this as G# A# B# C# D# E# F## G#. To that, I say nuts! And this is why that's not a G# scale at all, but an Ab scale, with four flats. Just easier to notate that way. And still a bitch to play on a mandolin, either way.

I wonder if A-board is still on board, after all this.  :Confused:

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## Laurence Firth

I agree with Bruce - the method he describes is correct theory and to my thinking easiest. Jim's method is commonly used but always seemed convoluted to me. For example I had a teacher who liked Jim's method and would describe a simple minor chord (the ii chord) this way: root flattened third and a fifth. That's true if you are thinking major sale and altering it. But that's not how the chord is derived. It's derived form the second interval, the forth and the 6th (minor 3rd + major third). I find it easier to think in the key / scale the piece is in and it's scale intervals rather than a major scale starting on the second interval with altered notes. But whatever works for you is what works for you.

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## Bertram Henze

Just an observation from a theory sceptic/antiseptic of many years' standing:

Chord notation was invented as shorthand code for the most common standard triads, where using the code is easier than quoting all the intervals. The more modifications you apply to those triads, the more complicated and unreadable the code becomes, and it would be better and shorter to just quote the intervals instead. Counting half steps above the base note, the diminished chord would be 0-3-6, and any weird chord can never look more complicated than, say, an emergency telephone number (try playing 0-9-11, e.g. C-A-B). We could lose all these Stargate hieroglyphs with that.

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## AlanN

Funny, it's not the first time a thread about this dissonant chord has generated a small amount of (ahem) discord. I know the dim chord is used in countless jazz vibes, everything from bebop to tin pan alley to Django; in grass, I'm trying to come up with tunes that use it and can only think of one: Blue Mule, off Muleskinner. The tune is in B chord, I think the dim is G#dim7. I'd need the mando in hand to say for sure. 

Any others?

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## Jim Broyles

Whatever works, of course, but I was taught in my Theory and Harmony class in 1968 this way to name the notes of a chord, and every forum I have ever participated in and every discussion until now  has done it this way. Isn't doesn't matter whether journeybear sees the sense of it or not. And you don't get it anyway. I'm saying that you name the notes of a chord by starting with the major scale of the root of the chord you are trying to name. If you see Dm7#5b9 on a chart, the way you name the notes in that chord is by altering the notes of a D major scale.  Google it. it is undeniable.

Alan, songs and tunes are in keys, not chords.  "B chord" is a chord, not a key.

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Mike Bunting

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## AlanN

hmmm...seems I've heard this before. And seems I've said this before...around here with the pickers I pick with, we say "This one's in B chord...". You, Jim, likely, don't say that. No big deal, in my mind.

How about it...other grass tunes with a dim chord?

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## grassrootphilosopher

> hmmm...
> How about it...other grass tunes with a dim chord?


- Little Rock Getaway (as played by Don Reno on the old King recording and with Bill Harrel on some later recording)

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## AlanN

Yep, suppose LRG could be considered a grass tune, based on who done it.

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## ombudsman

> Bruce - Saying G# has eight sharps had my head spinning. My experience has led me to believe the maximum number of sharps or flats is six, and then you've gone around the circle and gotten back to none, that is, C. If I go along with you, then what I think you mean is a scale like this: G# A# C C# D# F G G#. I think you want to see this as G# A# B# C# D# E# F## G#. To that, I say nuts! And this is why that's not a G# scale at all, but an Ab scale, with four flats. Just easier to notate that way.


It's getting a bit academic, but the rationale for keys with more than 7 accidentals is because of composed pieces of music that modulate from a key with say 6 or 7 accidentals to a new root. It's considered to be difficult for a performer to suddenly, and briefly, switch from a key with lots of sharps to one with lots of flats and then back again. 

The key of G#, with 8 sharps, is absolutely G#, A#, B#, C#, D#, E#, F##, G#. Each degree always gets its own letter, so the B# is the correct third, it is not only wrong but confusing to call it a C. If you think about the process of reading chords from notation it should be understandable how the music tells you the function of each note in the chord as well as absolute pitch. Otherwise a chord on a page would just be a sort of abstract cluster of pitches, and you would have no real time method to be sure which note was the third, etc, and it would be a lot easier to make mistakes and harder to understand how the chord is being used and why it works.

If you know the patterns of how the keys work you'll notice that the keys with more than 7 accidentals follow the same order as those with fewer accidentals, as do the accidentals themselves that are used. So as you move through the cycle of 5ths starting in C the keys are G D A E B F# C# and then keep going you would then be in G#, D#... never heard of any piece using anything further than that, but it's possible. And the order that sharps are introduced is F C G D A E B, so that's true of the double sharps as well, as you see with the F## in the key of G#. I'm just mentioning this to show why these keys aren't that intimidating if you are familiar with the basic 15 keys.

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Mike Bunting

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## journeybear

> It doesn't matter whether journeybear sees the sense of it or not.


Never has, never will. About time someone said it . Thanks!  :Mandosmiley: 

All I meant is it seems an extra, unnecessary step. A chord is a chord regardless of the key the song is in. So if you want to build a Dm7#5b9 or whatever chord, you know what intervals go where to do so. You are probably not going to be playing the scale associated with the root of that chord when it comes up in the progression, but rather the scale of the spng's key, or something similar. You may play a melody line that accentuates a note or two in that chord, but you're not necessarily changing keys in the process. Or maybe you are, momentarily; I don't know, I'm not too hip on jazz. But if that's the way you were taught, and it's easier for you to compute it that way, fine. I don't see the need for it, that's all. And that doesn't matter.  :Wink: 

As to the key of G# ... I understand the notation, honest I do, I just don't like it. I'll play in Ab and manage just fine. I'll grumble to the singer about it, asking why he can't shift the key to G or A, both of which are keys I can play in much more easily. But I'm not going to worry about it; I know which notes to play. If it makes it easier for me to think of moving the scale for either G up a fret or A down a fret, ai'll do so. Not important. It won't matter. Not intil the day I decide to write something in G#. If that ever happens, someone just put me out of my misery, please.

I wonder whether the OP ever got his answer? We've drifted far afield ...

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## Nevin

I am going to try and bridge the gap.  Chord notation is an imperfect thing and often inconsitant.  I learned classical theory and the first time I heard of a half dimminished chord I said there was no such thing.  Now I understand the conveniance of the half diminshed notation even if I cringe a bit at the name.  

So yes chords are built off scales but in a lot of music non scale excursions are common.  Sometimes thinking in the scale is the best way to go.  Other times it sure is handy to know the intervals that make up the chord.  

I must say that if I saw the symbol in OP I would asume a triad.  Looking through many reams of jazz charts the vast majority of them indicate a 7th when they want one.  That said unless you are on the bandstand reading the chord on the fly, check out how the 7th would fit and play accordingly.

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journeybear

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## ombudsman

journeybear, fwiw I'm into jazz and have some classical training but I don't think I've ever actually had a piece of music in front of me with more than 7 accidentals in a key signature. I've looked up examples online out of curiosity but they are not in my world for practical purposes. So with us having different backgrounds I still have the same conclusion as you.

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journeybear

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## journeybear

Thanks. I have had precious little music theory training, so most of what I know is what I've learned from either playing or sussing out sheet music song by song, and relating what I learned from one or another source to a task at hand. While my level of expertise is bound to be considered rudimentary by some (including myself  :Wink:  ), I prefer to think I have a fairly good working sense of what goes, and usually more than what I need for the music I usually play.

But yes, that said, I thought six was the limit for accidentals (F# or G#, also the exact midpoint of the 12-tone scale in C), then you're on the other side of the circle (if you had been going through the sharp keys, now you're in the flat keys, and vice versa.) But I did see a circle of fifths diagram while working through this subject that had a couple of keys with seven accidentals, albeit side-by-side with their enharmonic equivalents with five acidentals of the other type.

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## Jim Broyles

> hmmm...seems I've heard this before. And seems I've said this before...around here with the pickers I pick with, we say "This one's in B chord...". You, Jim, likely, don't say that. No big deal, in my mind.
> 
> How about it...other grass tunes with a dim chord?


Well, Raw Hide has an augmented chord. Can't think of any right now with a dim.

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## Jim Broyles

> Never has, never will. About time someone said it . Thanks! 
> 
> All I meant is it seems an extra, unnecessary step. A chord is a chord regardless of the key the song is in. So if you want to build a Dm7#5b9 or whatever chord, you know what intervals go where to do so. You are probably not going to be playing the scale associated with the root of that chord when it comes up in the progression, but rather the scale of the spng's key, or something similar. You may play a melody line that accentuates a note or two in that chord, but you're not necessarily changing keys in the process. Or maybe you are, momentarily; I don't know, I'm not too hip on jazz. But if that's the way you were taught, and it's easier for you to compute it that way, fine. I don't see the need for it, that's all. And that doesn't matter. 
> 
> As to the key of G# ... I understand the notation, honest I do, I just don't like it. I'll play in Ab and manage just fine. I'll grumble to the singer about it, asking why he can't shift the key to G or A, both of which are keys I can play in much more easily. But I'm not going to worry about it; I know which notes to play. If it makes it easier for me to think of moving the scale for either G up a fret or A down a fret, ai'll do so. Not important. It won't matter. Not intil the day I decide to write something in G#. If that ever happens, someone just put me out of my misery, please.
> 
> I wonder whether the OP ever got his answer? We've drifted far afield ...


Dude! Nobody is talking about the key of G#.  If I wanted to write one in that key I would use Ab. I'm only talking about how to name the notes of a chord. The example was G#dim7 and the argument was that there are too many sharps in the G# scale. Fine, but if you want to name the notes in any kind of a G# chord, you alter the notes of the G# major scale.

 Look at our example: Dm7#5b9. If the notes you have to flatten or sharpen aren't defined somehow, how do you know what note to do what with?  So  you see it's  Dm.... so that means you have a flat 3rd, sharp 5th, flat 7th and sharp 9th. Why is it a flat third? If you used the Dm scale, the third is already 1 and a half semitones up from the tonic, so if we universally base all chord note naming protocol on the root's major scale, we automatically have the reference notes and the chord symbol tells us how to alter them  to achieve the required chord. Otherwise what is a #5?  You could say is an augmented 5th up from the tonic, but it says the same thing a little more easily if you know you have to raise the  5th degree of the major scale. How do you know what 7th to play? The diatonic 7th  is not what the arranger wants in this chord. You have to start out with universal "rules" and what it is, is you name chord notes by altering the degrees of the major scale. Period.

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sblock

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## AlanN

Funny, I was thinking of Monroe and wondering if he ever, ever used one (having writ [Big Mon speak] so many numbers). I came up with 'no'. And on Rawhide - yes, the banjo does the G+. Does Bill? Heck no, he goes to C chord  :Laughing:  Always wondered about that. Seems it was a clam left in the final take. Now, the adherents do it to be true to form....I never cared for it, meself.

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## journeybear

> Nobody is talking about the key of G#.


It's come up repeatedly in many posts, including some of yours. I don't know why, since the chord the OP asked about was C#°.

But that second paragraph was meant more for Bruce, who may have introduced that part of the discussino. I was following the model  of my post # 20, addressing the two of you separately, but neglected to mention you each by name this time. Sorry for any confusion.

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## ombudsman

> Dude! Nobody is talking about the key of G#.  If I wanted to write one in that key I would use Ab. I'm only talking about how to name the notes of a chord. The example was G#dim7 and the argument was that there are too many sharps in the G# scale. Fine, but if you want to name the notes in any kind of a G# chord, you alter the notes of the G# major scale.
> 
>  Look at our example: Dm7#5b9. If the notes you have to flatten or sharpen aren't defined somehow, how do you know what note to do what with?  So  you see it's  Dm.... so that means you have a flat 3rd, sharp 5th, flat 7th and sharp 9th. Why is it a flat third? If you used the Dm scale, the third is already 1 and a half semitones up from the tonic, so if we universally base all chord note naming protocol on the root's major scale, we automatically have the reference notes and the chord symbol tells us how to alter them  to achieve the required chord. Otherwise what is a #5?  You could say is an augmented 5th up from the tonic, but it says the same thing a little more easily if you know you have to raise the  5th degree of the major scale. How do you know what 7th to play? The diatonic 7th  is not what the arranger wants in this chord. You have to start out with universal "rules" and what it is, is you name chord notes by altering the degrees of the major scale. Period.


I think you're conflating the way you (and to be fair, lots of other people) think of these chords, and how their names _must_ work. G# sus as a chord name does not literally specify notes to be altered from a major scale. We know what the structure of the notes in a sus chord is, and it certainly can be expressed the way you describe, but they can also be expressed as intervals without reference to a hypothetical scale.

You're also being explicitly absolute about something that does in fact have exceptions. Quartal and quintal harmony, certain kinds of 12 tone harmony, and some types of chords used by Olivier Messiaen can use fundamentally different kinds of chord names that are not based on major scales or assumptions of tertial intervals. I'm sure there are other exceptions as well, but I don't need to win an obscure reference contest so I'll stop there.

----------

Paleosporin

----------


## AlanN

Confusion? This thread? No way...

----------

journeybear

----------


## Jim Broyles

> I think you're conflating the way you (and to be fair, lots of other people) think of these chords, and how their names _must_ work. G# sus as a chord name does not literally specify notes to be altered from a major scale. We know what the structure of the notes in a sus chord is, and it certainly can be expressed the way you describe, but they can also be expressed as intervals without reference to a hypothetical scale.
> 
> You're also being explicitly absolute about something that does in fact have exceptions. Quartal and quintal harmony, certain kinds of 12 tone harmony, and some types of chords used by Olivier Messiaen can use fundamentally different kinds of chord names that are not based on major scales or assumptions of tertial intervals. I'm sure there are other exceptions as well, but I don't need to win an obscure reference contest so I'll stop there.



Well, in the last decade or so, you have had to specify whether  is was a 4 or a 2 that was getting suspended, but otherwise "G#sus" certainly does specify what to alter. The third is removed from a sus chord. Whether you replace it with a 2 or a 4 needs to be specified. 99+% of the time I'd play a G#C#D# for a G#sus chord.  If the arranger wanted an A#, a 2 would be included in the chord symbol in most cases. I am, (I'm sure you know,) referring to protocols in so-called "Western" music  which is really what we discuss here a vast majority of the time.  You do win the obscure reference contest.

----------


## ombudsman

> I am, (I'm sure you know,) referring to protocols in so-called "Western" music  which is really what we discuss here a vast majority of the time.


All of the other examples I gave are also from western music. But if we've arrived at agreement that the vast majority of time is not the same thing as discussion-ending "never"/"period" statements, then that's a positive.

----------


## ombudsman

Oh, and, quartal harmony - not really obscure, if you like jazz or 60s pop.

----------


## Jim Broyles

Okay, but we are also talking about playing chords on a mandolin. I am not aware of any quartal and tertial chords we need to learn. I daresay *every* chart  any of us is likely to encounter at a jam will have chord symbols, the notes of which will be named the way I described. Maybe I should have said "popular" rather than "Western" music. Furthermore, even in those examples, you still have to have a reference point, don't you? I mean if you encounter stacked triads or Lydian Dominant stuff, the notes in the chord symbols still have to start somewhere do they not?

----------


## tree

> ...around here with the pickers I pick with, we say "This one's in B chord..."
> 
> How about it...other grass tunes with a dim chord?




Around here we say "This here un's in B chord . . . who's gone kick it off?"  :Grin: 

Although there are different schools of playing Kentucky Waltz, my school uses a (half-, I think) dim chord when it gets to the part where he longs once *more* for her embrace.

And in my personal musical life, ever since I was shown that a half-dim chord can be substituted for a rootless 7th chord, I try to do that every chance I get - typically, I overuse every cool new thing I learn.

----------


## ombudsman

> Okay, but we are also talking about playing chords on a mandolin. I am not aware of any quartal and tertial chords we need to learn. I daresay *every* chart  any of us is likely to encounter at a jam will have chord symbols, the notes of which will be named the way I described.


That may well be true for you, and that's fine, I'm not making value judgements about whatever music people are into. 

It is not unheard of for me to take a stab at "Surf's Up" or "So What" or "Impressions", and some of my original tunes that I have played in bands do use quartal notation such as AQ4 for the chord that could alternatively be described as "Am7add11 no third". AQ4 is not only more succinct, but it also reveals how the chord was actually intended without invoking a key that it (or the surrounding song) isn't particularly related to (C major or A minor), and depending on the style it may also imply that the voicing is a straight up and down stack with no skips or octave displacement.




> Maybe I should have said "popular" rather than "Western" music. Furthermore, even in those examples, you still have to have a reference point, don't you? I mean if you encounter stacked triads or Lydian Dominant stuff, the notes in the chord symbols still have to start somewhere do they not?


I suppose with any chord that can be conceived of as a structure that can be specific and also independent of one particular root, there has to be at least some specification of a root, or the lowest or highest note, plus some way to convey the set of other notes by a named structure or a list.

The point is that for the latter requirement, it needn't be specific about alterations from a diatonic scale, and in some cases relating it to a diatonic scale when the chord really wasn't built that way in the first place would only be confusing. 

Not unlike how describing a whole tone scale, or many other scales that don't have 7 notes in them, as a set of alterations from a major scale is an exercise in ambiguity and confusion. Or how trying to describe basic blues harmony in terms of traditional, single key diatonic harmony and notation is next to impossible and a bad idea to try.

----------


## bobby bill

God I love this web site.  May I throw in my observations?

Having different languages to describe the same thing is fine if we understand each other's language.  I am not too conversant in pop or jazz theory so it really helps me here with these other languages.  

To my ears, describing a c#dim chord as c# with a flat third and a flat fifth is confusing.  Thirds are either major or minor.  Fifths are either perfect, diminished, or augmented.  And there are certainly no flats involved in an e natural (the third) or the g natural (the fifth).  So I would have described the chord as c# with a minor third and a diminished fifth.

And although I read the chord as a triad, I have always taken the position that you can always add the diminished seventh to a diminished triad without changing the color of the chord.  And frankly, because there are only three diminished seventh chords, it is a lot easier and quicker to find them on the mandolin.

I also think of chords in terms of their position within a key, but it should be noted that there can be very brief and temporary changes in the key.  I am talking about secondary dominants rather than key changes.  If I recall correctly, Georgia is in the key of F but the c#dim is moving to a dmin, the vi chord in F.  The c#dim (the triad) are the top three notes of an A7 chord, which is the dominant seventh chord in dmin.  So you might describe this chord as:  V7/vi meaning it is the dominant seventh chord of the vi chord in F.  Or you could describe it as viidim/vi.  And if you played a c#dim7, you might describe it as viidim7/vi, but it also sounds very much like a V7flat9/vi.  (And I am very much aware that I just called it a flat nine rather than a minor nine - go figure.)  So for a very brief moment you are thinking in the key of d minor rather than F.  And although it is true there is no c# in the key signature of d minor, the harmonic minor has the raised seventh tone, so I would still consider it diatonic to the key of d minor.  

To all the nerds adding to this conversation, thank you for helping me understand all the various languages out there.

----------


## Bertram Henze

> Around here we say "This here un's in B chord . . . who's gone kick it off?"


30 years ago, when I joined a band, they called all the triads "major" and the more complicated ones with a 7th, 9th or 6th "minor" ...  :Whistling:

----------


## Jim Broyles

> God I love this web site.  May I throw in my observations?
> 
> Having different languages to describe the same thing is fine if we understand each other's language.  I am not too conversant in pop or jazz theory so it really helps me here with these other languages.  
> 
> To my ears, describing a c#dim chord as c# with a flat third and a flat fifth is confusing.  Thirds are either major or minor.  Fifths are either perfect, diminished, or augmented.  And there are certainly no flats involved in an e natural (the third) or the g natural (the fifth).  So I would have described the chord as c# with a minor third and a diminished fifth.
> 
> And although I read the chord as a triad, I have always taken the position that you can always add the diminished seventh to a diminished triad without changing the color of the chord.  And frankly, because there are only three diminished seventh chords, it is a lot easier and quicker to find them on the mandolin.
> 
> I also think of chords in terms of their position within a key, but it should be noted that there can be very brief and temporary changes in the key.  I am talking about secondary dominants rather than key changes.  If I recall correctly, Georgia is in the key of F but the c#dim is moving to a dmin, the vi chord in F.  The c#dim (the triad) are the top three notes of an A7 chord, which is the dominant seventh chord in dmin.  So you might describe this chord as:  V7/vi meaning it is the dominant seventh chord of the vi chord in F.  Or you could describe it as viidim/vi.  And if you played a c#dim7, you might describe it as viidim7/vi, but it also sounds very much like a V7flat9/vi.  (And I am very much aware that I just called it a flat nine rather than a minor nine - go figure.)  So for a very brief moment you are thinking in the key of d minor rather than F.  And although it is true there is no c# in the key signature of d minor, the harmonic minor has the raised seventh tone, so I would still consider it diatonic to the key of d minor.  
> ...



Well, you seem to be interchanging scale degrees and intervals.  I am strictly talking scale degrees when I talk about how to name chord notes. I don't say a C#dim is a C# with a flat 3rd and a flat 5th, which it is. I say when you see a chord symbol, you deduce the notes in the chord by altering the notes of the major scale of the root.  Yes, the interval of a third is either major or minor, but the third degree of a major scale is always two semitones above the tonic.  A minor nine and a flat nine are two different things.  Minor 9th refers to a minor triad with the b7 and the 9th added in. Flat nine refers to lowering the 9th degree one semitone. Also, I do not ever use the "chord"/"chord"  (V/vi) method to name a chord.  Seems way too complicated. If I were charting a C#dim in the key of F using a number system, I'd write #5dim or #Vdim. I think this is how they do it with the Nashville Numbering System.  And yes, you can add the diminished 7th to a diminished triad without changing the color of the chord. It's the diatonic 7th that changes the color  when added to the diminished triad.

----------


## ombudsman

> AQ4 for the chord that could alternatively be described as "Am7add11 no third"


duh make that "Am7add11 no fifth"

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## Jim Broyles

Delete

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## Jim Broyles

> duh make that "Am7add11 no fifth"




Okay, you'll have to trust me on this, but I did not read that original post, but this is how I would spell that chord: To me, the important bits of info aside from "no fifth" are "m", "7" and "add." I will explain after I spell the chord: A C G D. The small m tells me it's minor, so flat the 3rd, the 7 means add the b7, and the "add" means add the 11th, but not the 9th, which would ordinarily be found in an 11th chord. No fifth means exactly that. How'd I do? I would never know this by seeing AQ4, and although I do admit it is more succinct, it requires learning a whole new set of information. Us self-taughters don't always know where to go to find that stuff. 

I still do not invoke a key to spell my chords, though. You guys seem to be saying I do, but all I'm talking about is using the major scale of the root to help spell a chord. The key of the piece does not matter.

----------


## JeffD

I think I figured out why I don't play jazz.

 :Smile:

----------


## ombudsman

> I would never know this by seeing AQ4, and although I do admit it is more succinct, it requires learning a whole new set of information. Us self-taughters don't always know where to go to find that stuff.


Right, well, I don't go around putting that quartal symbol in front of other players and expecting them to know it already. I would show it to them and give a brief explanation. But it's easy, at least on guitar, you can simply barre at the 5th fret and play the lower 4 strings. Most people seem to be pretty clear on it after that, because it's so symmetrical.  

If you don't use the chord, you don't need an efficient way of writing it. But I use it a lot, and it gets old writing Am7add11 no fifth a bunch of times on a chart. I just had to make 17 key strokes to type that, for a chord that only has 4 notes in it. I could literally just give you a list of the notes, ADGC, and it would be 4 times more efficient. 

At some point you have to recognize that using tertial language for chords that are not tertial is like the musical equivalent of Jack Nicholson ordering a tuna salad sandwich, hold the tuna salad. It's just like trying to explain to a beginner how diatonic major keys work and showing them harmonized triads or seventh chords, and then trying to explain a simple 12 bar blues which follows none of those rules. Everybody has a limit for how much mental shoehorning they are willing to tolerate. There's a difference between preferring what you already know, and actually having a good way to express the basic units of music that you work with every day.

----------


## Bertram Henze

> I think I figured out why I don't play jazz.


Yes - considering that when they play their stuff it all sounds so freely invented as they go along, this high degree of coding kind of deflates it all. We should feed all the chord progressions we've seen on this thread into a Perl interpreter and see what it does...

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## journeybear

What is this chord? A big pain in the sit-upon and a real trouble-maker.  :Wink:

----------


## Pasha Alden

I have been treading lightly around these chords, but really hope to practice them before jamming with the school learners and learn at least two or three. They add such a great dimension to the music.

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## ombudsman

> Yes - considering that when they play their stuff it all sounds so freely invented as they go along, this high degree of coding kind of deflates it all.


It's all relative. I've heard that same feeling of deflation expressed by a person just after I was telling her some things about dominant progressions in pop songs. 

She had gone through life until then imagining that songs were put together like little snowflakes where any chord could be placed next to any other as if they were colors in a painting, guided only by personal taste and whimsy, with each new song being like a tabula rasa, except when deliberate copying of another song was involved. And then I had a dim recollection of thinking that myself when I was a lot younger.

----------


## EdHanrahan

> ... like little snowflakes where any chord could be placed next to any other as if they were colors in a painting ... dim recollection of thinking that myself ...


Hey...  I, IV, V...  Red, yellow, blue...  But that only applies to pigments; for light it all changes to...  Uhmm, never mind!

----------


## Paleosporin

I see some misconceptions in this thread about how chords are constructed, and more importantly their relationship to each other. Harmony in Western music is derived from the major scale. Let's take D major.

D E F# G A B C#

Or, let's numerate each degree.

DEF#GABC#

Chords are constructed from this scale by building successive thirds off of each degree of the scale. It seems that most of the contributors in this thread know how to obtain the tonic chord: start with the first note of the scale, then skip a letter, then skip another letter, and so forth.

*D* E *F#* G *A*, just take out the non-bolded letters and you get a D major triad (D F# A).

The next thing to realize is that this applies not only to the first note of the scale, but all of the other ones as well.

D F# A (D)E G B (Em)F# A C# (F#m)G B D (G)A C# E (A)B D F# (Bm)C# E G (C#°)

And look at that, there's C#° at the end of the list. We don't need to start with a C# major scale and go crazy with altering things, because it's all contained in this D major scale. What is important about building all of these chords from the same major scale is that the chords bear relationships toward one another that work toward the singular goal of intensifying the tonic chord, D.



```
X:18
T:Andrew Carr
M:9/8
L:1/8
R:Slip Jig
K:D
|:"D"d2B AFA AFA|"D"d2A "Bm"def "A"gfe|"D"d2B AFA "A"ABc|"D"d2D DEF "A"E2D:|
w:I|I ~ vi ~ ~ V|I ~ ~ ~ ~ V|I ~ ~ ~ ~ V
|:"D"F2A AFA AGF|"G"G2B BGB BAG|"D"F2A AFA "A"ABc|"D"d2D DEF "A"E2D:|
w:I|IV|I ~ ~ ~ ~ V|I ~ ~ ~ ~ V
```

(If you don't already know what that is, it's ABC notation. You can copy-paste that code into a converter, such as this one or this one, and have instant sheet music.)

In this tune, you will see that there are chords on the top of the staff and some Roman numerals on the bottom of the staff. The Roman numerals indicate the position and function of a chord in the key. In the case of this song, the key is D major. Remember before how we had numbered the scale degrees of D major from 1 to 7? When speaking of chords in a scale, we use the Roman numerals instead. So, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 becomes I II III IV V VI VII. However, we also change the letter case of the numerals to reflect whether a chord is major, minor, diminished, or augmented.

I = D
ii = Em
iii = F#m
IV = G
V = A
vi = Bm
vii° = C#°
Notice that in Andrew Carr's, V (A) always precedes I (D). This is a basic relationship in Western music. Each phrase ends with V because that chord pushes our ear toward I when the section repeats. The reason for this is because V contains the seventh note of the scale (C#), which we call the "leading tone". Our ear wants to hear the completion of the scale by resolving that C# up to D. Any chord containing C# in the key of D is going to push toward the tonic, and the tune won't sound finished until you hit a D at the end. With that in mind, which other chords in the key have that leading tone? C#° and F#m. You could theoretically substitute C#° or F#m anywhere where you see A in this piece, because it will fulfill the same harmonic function. F#m might sound a little weird, because two thirds of it is identical to the tonic triad, D. (D *F# A* vs. *F# A* C), and to use it as a leading tone function chord is like trying to get somewhere that you've already gotten. The other chords that contain that tone, A (A C# E) and C#° (C# E G), are dissimilar enough to the tonic chord that this is not a problem. The reason that you see V more often than vii°#is because it is easier to play a major triad than a diminished triad on most instruments, and V shares enough notes with vii° that you get the same functional sound (A *C# E* vs. *C# E* G).

We can make richer harmonies by adding more tones onto chords. The traditional method is to keep stacking thirds on top of each other to make 7th chords, then 9th chords, 11th chords, and finally 13th chords. For the moment, let's examine 7th chords.

Imaj7 = Dmaj7, D F# A C#
ii7 = Em7, E G B D
iii7 = F#m7, F# A C# E
IVmaj7 = Gmaj7, G B D F#
V7 = A7, A C# E G
vi7 = Bm7, B D F# A
viiø7 = C#ø7, C# E G B
These are the diatonic seventh chords in the key of D major. You can look at these as the triads that we already covered, plus one of two kinds of sevenths: either a major seventh (maj7) or a minor seventh (7). You could tack these chords onto the slip jig we looked at and still have a correct harmonization: change all the D's to Dmaj7's, all of the Bm's to Bm7's, all of the G's to Gmaj7's, and all of the A's to A7's. Let's pay special attention to the A7 for a moment. When dealing with seventh chords, you get a two-in-one sonority. A7 (A C# E G) is not only A (A C# E), but also C#° (C# E G). Since both have a leading tone function, it's like a super-duper leading tone chord.

What of that last one, that looks like its first name is Sven? C#ø7 is the so-called "half-diminished seventh chord." I will explain the "half" part momentarily, but just think of this chord as a diminished triad + a minor seventh. In jazz and pop circles, this chord is called "m7(♭5)", which I consider to be incorrect because it is obtained by starting with diminished triad and add a seventh, not by taking a m7 chord and altering it. I mean, you can, but we don't say "Dm7(#7,#3)" for Dmaj7. viiø7 is a rare chord, but it comes from a very common procedure. I don't think that it is as compelling as V7, V, or even vii°. It is a nice chord, but difficult to use well. It's used as an arpeggio in the seventh and fifteenth measures of this tune:



```
X: 2
T: Rickett's
R: hornpipe
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: D
dcdA FAdf | edcB A2 fg | afaf bagf | edcB A2 fe |
dcdA FAdf | edcB A2 fg | afdg bgec | d2 d2 d2 :||
afaf d2 ga | bgbg e2 fg | afaf bagf | edcB A2 fe |
dcdA FAdf | edcB A2 fg | afdg bgec | d2 d2 d2 :|]
```

In practice, a rhythm player would probably do "A" or "A7" for that part of the music (because V and vii° substitute for one another), but they could ostensibly play C#ø7 there.

If you're reharmonizing your entire repertoire with seventh chords, you may find that Dmaj7 does not always work well to take the place of D, because it's the same deal as the F#m that we talked about earlier. Dmaj7 contains D F# A C#, and C# is the leading tone. Where's that leading tone going? It should be going to D, but we already have D in that chord. It's a colorful and beautiful chord, but you may find that your ear prefers a plain old D triad when you need finality. This is also a stylistic thing. In jazz, it is common to end on Imaj7, because color shares equal ground with functionality in that music. In Western traditional music, harmonic function is usually stronger than any coloristic tendencies. Color in English/Irish/Scotch music is typically achieved through the use of different modes rather than complex chords or oddball harmonic motion.

I'm going to break this up into two posts, so that I can talk about the colors of the minor mode.

----------

Mark Wilson, 

Mike Bunting

----------


## Paleosporin

When we talk about minor keys in Western music, we typically bring up the natural minor scale, as well as the harmonic and melodic minor. Let's do these in the key of A.

A natural minor: A B C D E F G [1 2 ♭3 4 5 ♭6 ♭7]A harmonic minor: A B C D E F G# [1 2 ♭3 4 5 ♭6 7]A melodic minor: A B C D E F# G# [1 2 ♭3 4 5 6 7]

(I'm using "♭" to indicate which degrees are lowered when compared to a major scale sharing the same tonic. A major is A B *C#* D E *F# G#*, A natural minor is A B *C* D E *F G*; 3, 6, and 7 are flat compared to their equivalent in the major mode.)

These are taught and often conceived as separate entities, but in practice there is no such separation. Rather, I posit that "minor" means a seven-note scale in which the sixth and seventh degrees are variable.

A minor (with variable 6 and 7): A B C D E F/F# G/G# [1 2 ♭3 4 5 ♭6/6 ♭7/7]

This means that we have a great many colors to work with in the minor mode, both in harmony as well as melody. Not only do we have the natural minor colors at our fingertips at any given time, but by messing with those sixth and seventh degrees we can get melodic and harmonic minor as needed, and even the dorian mode (A B C D E F# G; 1 2 ♭3 4 5 6 ♭7). In other words, this is the palette of chords for the minor mode:

I'm starting with the natural minor version of the chord on the left, and going to the chords containing either the variable 6 or 7 as I go to the right.

i = Am, A C E
ii° = B°, B D F; ii = Bm, B D F#
♭III = C, C E G; ♭III+ = C+, C E G#
iv = Dm, D F A; IV = D, D F# A
v = Em, E G B; V = E, E G# B
♭VI = F, F A C; vi° = F#°, F# A C
♭VII = G, G B D; vii° = G#°, G# B D
The Coleraine Jig contains such variable 6/7 madness:



```
X:3
T:Coleraine Jig
M:6/8
L:1/8
R:Jig
K:Am
E|:"Am"EAA ABc|"E"Bee e2d|"Am"cBA ABc|"E"B^GE E2E|
w:~ i|V|i|V
"Am"EAA ABc|"E"Bee e2d|"Am"cBA "E"B^GE|[1"Am"A3 A2E:|[2"Am"A3 A2B||
w:i|V|i ~ ~ V|i|i
|:"C"c2c cdc|"G"Bdg g2^g|"Am"aed cBA|"E"^GBG E^FG|
w:bIII|bVII|i|V
"Am"A^GA "E"BAB|"Am"cde "Dm"fed|"Am"cBA "E"BA^G|[1"Am"A3 A2B:|[2"Am"A3 A2|]
w:i ~ ~ V|i ~ ~ iv|i ~ ~ V|i|i
```

The first two systems alternate between i and V, which is typical harmonic minor stuff. The third system starts with the ♭7 from the natural minor, then goes back to 7, and we even get 6 from the melodic minor at the end of the third line. In the second measure of the fourth system, there is an F (♭6), which in the context of the G# (7) in the measures around it firmly establishes the harmonic minor.

The minor mode also contains some important seventh chords. I won't list the seventh chords in their entirety because they become quite numerous when you factor in the variable degrees, but the important ones are iiø7 (Bø7, B D F A), V7 (E7, E G# B D), and vii°7 (G#°7, G# B D F). We've already seen two of these chord qualities before: iiø7 is like viiø7 in the major mode, but iiø7 is used much more frequently than viiø7. The half-diminished quality seems to function better as a supertonic (the 2nd degree chord of the key) than as a leading tone chord. V7 is also nothing new, but it is the entire purpose of the harmonic minor: the insertion of the leading tone (G#) into the music gives the minor mode the same tonal strength as the major mode. Plain old ♭7 (G) doesn't create the same tension. Next, we have vii°7. This is the so-called "fully diminished seventh chord," or simply the "diminished seventh chord". Why do they say half and fully diminished chords? I don't know, it doesn't make much sense to me. I suppose that a fully diminished seventh chord is as diminished as you can get with a chord without it becoming a different chord, and a half diminished seventh chord is only halfway there. Who knows. Note the spelling of these chords:

G#ø7 = G# B D F# (R ♭3 ♭5 ♭7)
G#°7 = G# B D F (R ♭2 ♭5 ♭♭7)
The interval from G# to F sounds like a major sixth (6), but is in fact a diminished seventh (♭♭7). They are enharmonically equivalent, but the way that F is functioning is as a seventh. You get that note by stacking thirds after all, the same way we obtained the first seventh chord in this post.

*G#* A *B* C *D* E *F*
And this guy works the same way that the vii° triad does: it can substitute for V(7).

All of the diminished chords are good chords. Unfortunately, some musicians make it a pain in the ass. On jazz charts, you'll often see "G#°" where the person writing it means "G#°7", because they can't be arsed to write a single disambiguating character. It's shorthand, and most jazzers know what's up, but there is a remarkable amount of inconsistency. What do you do when you want the triad instead of the seventh chord? The weird one is "m7(♭5)", which is accepted parlance for some reason. I know a few people who have called the diminished triad "m♭5", which is a carryover from the "m7(♭5)" spelling. It's a freakin' diatonic triad, you get it the same exact way you get a major or minor triad: by harmonizing the major scale. Because the notation of chord symbols is not something that is standardized, and the people who write these things are typically not altogether interested in standardization (or even music education), there are a million ways to write all of those common chords out there.

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## Mike Bunting

Do you differentiate between authentic and non-authentic minor keys?

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## Jim Broyles

Why can't a m7b5 chord be obtained by staring with the m7 chord and lowering the 5th?  The chord symbol tells you exactly how to spell it.  What would correctly call it? Fully diminished includes a diminished 7th. How else would you put it? As you know, m7b5's and °7th's are not always interchangeable, so both have to exist. When you use 7 by itself in a chord symbol, it refers to the lowered diatonic seventh in all cases but the dim7 chord. Seems pretty clear to my way of thinking. You saying that the m7b5 ought to be called dim7 since it's a dim triad with the b7? In a way it makes sense, but what do you call the dim7 then? Maybe we ought to get logical and call it a dim6, because the diminished 7th degree sounds like the natural 6th. Only trouble is  you screw up the staff notation of stacked minor thirds. What to do, what to do.....?

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## Paleosporin

> Do you differentiate between authentic and non-authentic minor keys?


I'm not sure what you mean. Strictly speaking, I consider key and mode to be exclusive pieces of information. "Key of D" only means to me that D is the tonic note. After that, I tack on the modal information. D major, D minor, D dorian, D phrygian, D lydian, D something-that-isn't-a-diatonic-scale, D something-that-doesn't-fit-nicely-into-a-singlular-modal-interpretation, it's all key of D.




> Why can't a m7b5 chord be obtain by staring with the m7 chord and lowering the 5th?  The chord symbol tells you exactly how to spell it.  What would correctly call it?


As I stated, "we don't say "Dm7(#7,#3)" for Dmaj7". I try to be consistent with my chord spelling. I start with the type of triad, then add the type of seventh, and finally list the extensions and alterations. If I see a chord such as C E G B D♭ F# A, I take the triad out first. C E G = C. It's a major triad. B is the major seventh, so we have Cmaj7 so far. The highest extension is a major thirteenth, so that replaces the number in the chord. We now have Cmaj13. There are some altered notes, so I list those in parentheses at the end of the chord symbol, starting from the highest alteration going to the lowest. Cmaj13(#11, ♭9). The ♭9 makes the chord kind of weird, but I'm only using it for the sake of an example.

If somebody throws B D F A C# at me, I'm going to do the exact same thing. First, isolate the triad. B D F, that's the diminished triad they taught you in Music 101, B°. It's not a minor triad. Unfortunately, we have to finagle the chord symbol when we add the seventh on, because the interpretation of "B°7" as "B D F A♭" is so widespread. In my opinion, "B°7" should be "B D F A" and we should use something like "B°°7" (or maybe something that looks less silly) for "B D F A♭," because it's the odd one out. However, I'm perfectly fine using the half-diminished symbol in the meantime, as it at least communicates that the triad is diminished. Anyway, after compromising, we have Bø7. The last tone is a ninth, and since it is not an altered ninth, it replaces that seventh in the chord symbol: Bø9.

You should be able to reduce any chord symbol down to one of four triads: M, m, °, +.




> Fully diminished includes a diminished 7th. How else would you put it? As you know, m7b5's and °7th's are not always interchangeable, so both have to exist.


Of course. They're different chords. When I want to use a half-diminished seventh chord, I'll write ø7. When I want to use a fully-diminished seventh chord, I'll write °7. Similarly, if I want a minor seventh chord, I'll write m7, and when I want to use a dominant seventh chord, I'll write 7. There is no conflict when every chord quality has a clear and consistent definition.




> When you use 7 by itself in a chord symbol, it refers to the lowered diatonic seventh in all cases but the dim7 chord. Seems pretty clear to my way of thinking. You saying that the m7b5 ought to be called dim7 since it's a dim triad with the b7? In a way it makes sense, but what do you call the dim7 then? Maybe we ought to get logical and call it a dim6, because the diminished 7th degree sounds like the natural 6th. Only trouble is  you screw up the staff notation of stacked minor thirds. What to do, what to do.....?


Yeah, the prevalence of "°7" meaning "1 ♭3 ♭5 ♭♭7" kind of screws it up. I see where that comes from, but what can we do? I already get enough crap for writing "∆" on my charts.

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## Jim Broyles

> As I stated, "we don't say "Dm7(#7,#3)" for Dmaj7".


With all due respect, this is a non sequitur, because, as you well know, the chords are named via the roots' major scales. There is no case where you would ever alter a minor scale's degrees to arrive at a chord name FWIW, I would spell that chord D F A C CX FX (X=##)

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## Jim Broyles

Furthermore, I'm not talking about someone throwing a group of notes at you and asking you to name the chord. I'm talking about seeing a chord symbol in a chart and arriving at the notes required to play the chord.

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## Paleosporin

> With all due respect, this is a non sequitur, because, as you well know, the chords are named via the roots' major scales. There is no case where you would ever alter a minor scale's degrees to arrive at a chord name


But we don't say "Dmaj7(♭7, ♭3)" for D F A C.




> FWIW, I would spell that chord D F A C CX FX (X=##)


If they were added chord members, I would indicate them as such with with an "add" particle. As long as I've been in music, I've always seen alterations indicated in parentheses at the end of the chord. Fmaj7(#11) is not F A C E G B♭ B.




> Furthermore, I'm not talking about someone throwing a group of notes at you and asking you to name the chord. I'm talking about seeing a chord symbol in a chart and arriving at the notes required to play the chord.


There are no real conventions. However, I have no problem playing any chord symbol that makes sense. It's the chord symbols that don't make sense that bother me. I have a chart that one of my colleagues wrote with "Gmaj4" written on it. He probably means a G triad with an added fourth, but perhaps it's Gmaj11, Gsus4, Gmaj7sus4, Gadd4, who knows? I was there the first time he had a band play his chart, and the first thing the director did was stop the band and ask him "What the hell is a Gmaj4?," and then proceed to waste five minutes because this guy didn't have a good answer.

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## Jim Broyles

Read slowly: I'm not talking about naming the chord by looking at the notes. I'm talking about naming the chord tones by looking at the chord symbol. EX: See "Dm7" and play D F A C, not see D F A C and call it ???

I agree Gmaj4 makes no sense, but G4 is one I have come across. They want a G triad with a C added. The problem  is that conventionally, the "maj" means a natural seventh, so Gmaj4 would be G B D F# C if we did it by convention.

Fmaj7(#11)  is F A C E B. Why ever would it have a G or a Bb in it?

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## A-board

Wow! I thought my original post might be met with a yawn and a couple responses. Glad the naïve question could generate such a robust discussion.

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## journeybear

Glad? I would have thought think you'd be sorry, opening up this can of worms. Talk about overkill!  :Laughing: 

Did you ever get an answwer to your fairly straightforward question? If not, try this:  C#° chord contains the notes C# E G  - if you like the sound with A# add it. 

For future reference, I suggest you buy Niles Hokkanen's book of chords, which is available in a convenient-sized booklet that will fit in a mandolin case's pocket. While it's tempting to believe that it's easy to ask what should be a simple question here, appearances may be deceiving.  :Whistling:

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## Paleosporin

> Read slowly: I'm not talking about naming the chord by looking at the notes. I'm talking about naming the chord tones by looking at the chord symbol. EX: See "Dm7" and play D F A C, not see D F A C and call it ???


I don't see the point of this exercise. Throw some chord symbols at me if you want to quiz me. Otherwise, the only things I will be able to provide are those I already have an answer for. Do you want a process? I look at the symbol and do the best I can with the information I have. I don't deal with bad chord symbols very often, because most of the musicians I hang out with luckily have their act together (although one of my buddies has a bad habit of calling out "Amaj7" when he means "A7"). This leadsheet has a bit of weirdness on it:



The first chord is what appears to be F9, with a circle around the 9. Or maybe that's a 7. Never seen that before, and I admit that I'm a little stumped. There are issues with the penmanship, but seeing how every other chord on the leadsheet is a seventh chord, I'm going to guess that the number should read "7," and judging by the rest of the harmony, the circle probably means that the seventh is major. In that case, the first chord is more commonly called "Fmaj7". Everything else is pretty standard, Eø7 is obviously E G B♭ D. E♭7 is E♭ G B♭ D♭. Dm7 is D F A C. D+7 is D F# A# C. The first three chords on the second system make sense of the circled 7 in my mind, because "Gm Gm∆ Gm7" would have a chromatic descent going G F# F, so it is realistic from a voice leading standpoint. This really isn't too bad other than the questionable notation of the major seventh chords. The "A♭7(+11)" on the seventh system is A C# E G D#, what I would call "A♭7(#11)". A lot of these things things are just differences in the symbols being used; chord symbol syntax is pretty constant otherwise.

♭/-
#/+
-/m
°/dim
∆/maj7
-7/m7




> I agree Gmaj4 makes no sense, but G4 is one I have come across. They want a G triad with a C added. The problem  is that conventionally, the "maj" means a natural seventh, so Gmaj4 would be G B D F# C if we did it by convention.


It's still a bad chord symbol. "Gmaj11" makes much more sense for G B D F# C, because we generally say that 2nd's, 4th's, and 6th's are 9th's, 11th's, and 13th's if there is a 7th in the chord. "G4" still isn't all that great. I'd think that it's either Gadd4 (G B C D), Gsus4 (G C D), or a quartal chord with G as the root (G C F B♭... however many fourths sound appropriate). For the last one, the most widely accepted notation I've seen is "GQ4", where G is the root, the suffix "Q" indicates that it is a quartal sonority, and "4" indicates how many tones there are in the chord. CQ3 would be C F B♭. For three-note quartal chords, you're more likely to see a tertian interpretation, "C7sus4," which gives you the same notes but does not necessarily capture the idea of a quartal chord, in my opinion.




> Fmaj7(#11)  is F A C E B. Why ever would it have a G or a Bb in it?


Ah, G is a typo. And my point is that the parenthesized chord members are alterations, not additional chord members. C13(♭9) contains only one ninth, and that ninth is flat. Your interpretation of my chord symbol "Dm7(#7, #3)" as "D F A C CX FX" treats the parenthesized members as added tones rather than alterations. But yes, it's a gibberish symbol.

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## journeybear

> Eø7 is obviously E G B♭ D. E♭7 is E♭ G B♭ D.


I've been staying out of this because it's gotten to be way too much for me. But I couldn't help noticing a couple things. The latter first - looks like a typo. I believe you meant "E♭7 is E♭ G B♭ *D♭*." The former - I actually agree with you (in my undereducated common-sense way), as D is the dominant seventh tone in reference to the root of that chord. BUT, some people earlier (way, way earlier) asserted that the notation "°7"  or even just "°" actually meant a double flatted seventh tone. Personally, if that is the intent,  I would write this as "°6," which would be in keeping with the assertion voiced by some that the "°" designation meant  - well, for E° - E G B♭ D♭ - that is, producing a chord pattern that could be called by any of its notes. I disagreed, believing that if a seventh is meant to be included, it should be so written, and not assumed or "understood" that is what was meant. (Besides, to my line of thinking, it should be written "°6," as that is the tone's position relative to the root.) Others disagreed with this, still others disagreed with them, and here we are.

So, to sum up - I agree with you on #1 above, and believe #2 above contains a typo.

Unless, that is, "ø7" means "major 7" rather than "diminished 7," in which case ... never mind.  :Whistling:

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## Paleosporin

Yeah, it's a typo. E♭7 is E♭ G B♭ D♭. Major triad, minor seventh.

And sevenths should absolutely be written into the symbol if the chord is meant to have a seventh. The exception is in extended tertian chords, like Bm11 (B D F# A C# E), Emaj9 (E G# B D# F#), and G13 (G B D F A E), where the seventh is implicit in the chord suffix.

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journeybear

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## Bertram Henze

Code AND typos - ok, it's programming after all...

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## AlanN

Hey, it's the cafe, where:

old is new again
the simple is complex
a pick is not a pick

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## Jim Broyles

The point of the exercise is that you have to know what notes are in a chord in order to play it. I'm telling whoever needs to know how to do it and I have been since the 13th post in this thread. My entire point all thread has been how to see a chord symbol and derive the proper notes. I don't know about your experience, but in mine, the biggest hangup  to actually playing, for the hobbyist and self-taught player, is lack of knowledge of basic theory. If more people knew basic theory - i.e., the intervals and triads of the major scale, how to harmonize it, and what to do when you see a chord symbol with all kinds of signs and numbers, their enjoyment of playing would increase dramatically.

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## Bertram Henze

> It's all relative. I've heard that same feeling of deflation expressed by a person just after I was telling her some things about dominant progressions in pop songs. 
> 
> She had gone through life until then imagining that songs were put together like little snowflakes where any chord could be placed next to any other as if they were colors in a painting, guided only by personal taste and whimsy, with each new song being like a tabula rasa, except when deliberate copying of another song was involved. And then I had a dim recollection of thinking that myself when I was a lot younger.


I guess everybody has had that experience at some point, but it is not exactly what I meant. 

I am aware that in every genre there are building blocks, frequently re-used; but I am coming from ITM, where the building blocks are aural, the player recognising them by ear and mostly learning a new tune this way - hardly anything is written down, and then it's only a melody guideline. The apparent spontaneity here goes with its illiteracy, so to speak, the system behind it remains invisible. There is never any discussion about notation, at least none worth mentioning.

What I see here is totally different. The looks of the coded artefacts seem more interesting than the sounds they represent.

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## Jim Broyles

I agree with your conclusion about the chart. A little detective work in that chart tells me that it is a 7 in the circle and it means major 7th. Look at the 5th bar - Gm > Gm(7 in a circle) then Gm7 without a circle > C7. The old "Summer Rain" descent. Obviously, the second chord in the 5th measure is GmMaj7. Why the guy didn't use Δ, I don't know.

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## Jim Broyles

The double flatted seventh is strictly because of staff notation, IMO. The intervals are all minor thirds, so you don't want to write C Eb Gb A for the chord,  even though to the ear, Gb to A sounds the same as Gb to Bbb. It needs to be a B on the staff. This is where music gets stupid to some people and I can't say I disagree.

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## Jim Broyles

Ack! I made a mistake in post 47 to bobby bill. I said the third in a major scale is always two *semitones* above the tonic. This should be two *whole* tones. 

Note to self: Please proof read, slowly!

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## Paleosporin

> Note to self: Please proof read, slowly!


Good advice to all of us!




> The double flatted seventh is strictly because of staff notation, IMO. The intervals are all minor thirds, so you don't want to write C Eb Gb A for the chord,  even though to the ear, Gb to A sounds the same as Gb to Bbb. It needs to be a B on the staff. This is where music gets stupid to some people and I can't say I disagree.


I don't know, I think it's a matter of how you conceive of the interval. After all, it's a succession of thirds. I find it easier in my mind to think of all seventh chords as a 1 3 5 7 of some sort. If things start switching back and forth between 7 and 6, it gets all muddled up. After all, you can play every other note in an A harmonic minor scale, effectively playing a series of thirds...

A C E G# B D F

... and the last four notes are the chord in question. Why should it have different syntax from any other four-note chord built of thirds?

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## Jim Broyles

> A C E G# B D F
> 
> ... and the last four notes are the chord in question. Why should it have different syntax from any other four-note chord built of thirds?


Well, it doesn't really have a different syntax. Those are still stacked minor thirds. And what is the next sequence? Ab Cb Ebb Gbb. See how stupid it gets? Ab has to be next to be a m3 above the F. Cb I can handle, but why not D and F for the last two notes?  Maybe all diminished notation ought to live within one octave or something, so you never have double flat or double sharp. I don't know, but it seems to me that even experienced sight readers would have to stop for a second on a chord with two doubles in it.

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## ombudsman

> I am aware that in every genre there are building blocks, frequently re-used; but I am coming from ITM, where the building blocks are aural, the player recognising them by ear and mostly learning a new tune this way - hardly anything is written down, and then it's only a melody guideline.


The building blocks are aural in jazz and everywhere else too ! And there are of course many players that go strictly by ear.




> The looks of the coded artefacts seem more interesting than the sounds they represent.


What a strange thing to say.

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## Paleosporin

> Well, it doesn't really have a different syntax. Those are still stacked minor thirds. And what is the next sequence? Ab Cb Ebb Gbb. See how stupid it gets? Ab has to be next to be a m3 above the F. Cb I can handle, but why not D and F for the last two notes?  Maybe all diminished notation ought to live within one octave or something, so you never have double flat or double sharp. I don't know, but it seems to me that even experienced sight readers would have to stop for a second on a chord with two doubles in it.


I'm only doing the diatonic thirds of the A harmonic minor scale. Every note in that sequence has but one name. If we continued, it would repeat all over again.

A C E G# B D F A C E G# B D F

Within that framework, we have the following seventh chords:

A C E G# = AmMaj7
B D F A = Bø7
C E G# B = C+Maj7
D F A C = Dm7
E G# B D = E7
F A C E = Fmaj7
G# B D F = G#°7

That's all there is. Every one of them is 1 3 5 7.




> I am aware that in every genre there are building blocks, frequently re-used; but I am coming from ITM, where the building blocks are aural, the player recognising them by ear and mostly learning a new tune this way - hardly anything is written down, and then it's only a melody guideline. The apparent spontaneity here goes with its illiteracy, so to speak, the system behind it remains invisible. There is never any discussion about notation, at least none worth mentioning.


All music is aural, even in a literate tradition. Illiteracy undoubtedly contributes to the vitality of the any tradition, as one needs to be intimately familiar with the repertoire in order to perform it. There is also the fact that this music was invented during a time when there were a lot fewer distractions around, and if you couldn't read a book, you probably entertained yourself by playing a musical instrument. That lack of boundaries fosters spontaneity. At the same time, spontaneity is certainly possible and even common in styles that rely on written music. In jazz, the notation is used more as a very loose suggestion than a hard fact. If you put a leadsheet in front of a jazz player, they will read it down, and the rhythm on the page will sound nothing like the rhythm coming from their instrument. Here is a computer playing Autumn Leaves as it is written in the Real Book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw4RXaM9DEg

Quarter notes and whole notes. Rather straight and boring, huh? Every jazz player that has ever read that leadsheet has read the notes like that. That's how the notation looks: straight and boring. Now here's Nat King Cole singing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=684eg6S8dCw

Completely different rhythm. Listen to how he pushes those notes around. Very often, the note on the downbeat will be moved to the 4 or the & of 4 of the previous measure. Each phrase may begin slightly earlier or slightly later than how it is written. Jazz is a language of rhythmic improvisation and spontaneous syncopation. It is a literate tradition, and one that requires a lot of chops and know-how, but jazz encourages intuition, fluidity, and spontaneity.

(When you get into bebop, the rhythms on the page look a lot closer to what a performer would do. That sort of music is much more dense, so it is a necessity. Non-solo parts on a big band chart will also be more strict in terms of rhythm, because ensembles need to stick together.)




> What I see here is totally different. The looks of the coded artefacts seem more interesting than the sounds they represent.


I suppose that's a matter of opinion. To me and many others, the "code" speaks directly to what the music sounds like. I can hear a written chord progression in my head, mentally improvise a melody that works well on top of it, play it, and write down what I played. I don't see how that makes me different from a "by ear" player, except that I can quantify what I am doing.

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## Bertram Henze

> Originally Posted by Bertram Henze
> 
> 
> The looks of the coded artefacts seem more interesting than the sounds they represent.
> 
> 
> What a strange thing to say.


...not for an ex-programmer who's not into jazz...  :Grin:

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## PaulBills

So, what frets on what strings would it be then?

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## Jim Broyles

> So, what frets on what strings would it be then?


What? C#°?  3243

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## AlanN

The wheels on the bus...

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Mike Bunting

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## Mike Bunting

I thought it was a Db demented or a C# squashed.

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## Will Patton

which are better -  A style mandolins or F- style?

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## mandowilli

I happen to think that this is some great material.

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## Will Patton

Yes, sorry . . . I did not mean to disrespect any poster on the thread.  I guess I've just always had a feeling that 'theory' is a great tool to communicate ideas and help us understand musical relationships and concepts but should not be confused with 'music' which is something we hear and feel, not talk about.  So all these ideas are valuable if they help anyone create or understand music better - no question.  Theory is also a language with regional dialects (classical, jazz . . . ) and none of them are 'right or wrong'.
If the issue becomes contentious it wanders away a bit from the joy in creating or experiencing emotion through sound waves -  more like rocket science than plumbing, if you will.

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Nevin

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## Jim Broyles

Will, I would remind you that this is the Theory Forum. This discussion is what it's here for.

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## tree

Agreed.  But it did come across kind of like a **ssing contest for a while there, which I believe is why there was somewhat of a "peanut gallery" chiming in from time to time. I mostly enjoyed the posts, they went way deeper than my pitiful understanding of music theory.  I'm confused at a much higher level now.  :Grin:

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## Givson

Hard Times by Stephen Foster has a diminished chord in the chorus, during the the first syllable of the word "weary" ("'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary").  However many bluegrass and other performers have simplified this progression by replacing the diminished chord with a IV chord.  Many songs by the Delmore Brothers (Deep River Blues, etc.) use diminished chords.  "Hard core" bluegrass tunes usually avoid the diminished chord, however I think you may find an occasional passing diminished chord in some bluegrass gospel numbers.

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## ombudsman

> Yes, sorry . . . I did not mean to disrespect any poster on the thread.  I guess I've just always had a feeling that 'theory' is a great tool to communicate ideas and help us understand musical relationships and concepts but should not be confused with 'music' which is something we hear and feel, not talk about.  So all these ideas are valuable if they help anyone create or understand music better - no question.  Theory is also a language with regional dialects (classical, jazz . . . ) and none of them are 'right or wrong'.
> If the issue becomes contentious it wanders away a bit from the joy in creating or experiencing emotion through sound waves -  more like rocket science than plumbing, if you will.


This cuts both ways Will. You're contributing to the topic being contentious when you define the problem as other people who are more into it than you are, basically having messed up priorities.

Y'ever notice how people that know more than us are taking things too far and missing what is really important, but people that know less are just hacks ? 

The resulting isolation in a group beyond reproach of just one member, must be the price of perfection.

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## AlanN

what the...

It's a chord, for goodness' sake.

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bigskygirl, 

journeybear

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## journeybear

Seriously. The question has been answered several times, long ago and also recently. Haven't seen a thread like this since the Jack White one. Some threads are vampire zombies. They just ... won't ... die ...  :Whistling:  ...

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## Nevin

The chord that ate the theory formum.

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## Jim Broyles

[Ralph Kramden] Har har HAR dee har har![/Ralph Kramden]:eyeroll:

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