Help - chord name? / chord naming

Subject: Help - chord name?
From: G-Force
Date: 27 May 19 - 06:16 AM

I'm working on a song, key of A major. The second chord is (from the bottom up) D# - F# - A - C#. Sort of like a B9, but without the B. Any idea what you would call that chord?

Subject: RE: Help - chord name?
From: G-Force
Date: 27 May 19 - 06:59 AM

Apart from that.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name?
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 27 May 19 - 07:42 AM

It depends what note is used as the root bass note, but could be D#m6 or F#m6, or even a Bbdim7, though arguably not a chord at all other than in the context of other chords that it is providing transition for.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name?
From: Stanron
Date: 27 May 19 - 07:53 AM

Context can inform this kind of problem but in the absence of context B9, rootless, is probably your best bet. It is certainly the simplest.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name?
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 27 May 19 - 08:08 AM

Very true, especially if there is another instrument, such as bass, playing a b note for you.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 27 May 19 - 10:58 AM

Half-diminished, or half-dim for short.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name?
From: leeneia
Date: 27 May 19 - 01:45 PM

It is a Dmaj7.

https://www.google.com/search?q=notes+in+Dmaj7+chord&oq=notes+in+Dmaj7+chord&aqs=chrome..69i57.10896j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Subject: RE: Help - chord name?
From: GUEST,Mark
Date: 27 May 19 - 02:03 PM

D#m7b5 or half-diminished

Subject: RE: Help - chord name?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 27 May 19 - 02:19 PM

leeneia - you've misread the 1st note there - it's a D# not a D (otherwise you would be correct).

The chord (as is) can be read as either an F#m6 or a D#m7b5 ('half-diminished'). B9 without the root is a reading but less likely in A (unless it then moves to E7 or E9).

As has been pointed out above, you really need the context to decide how to assign a name to the notes. If your A chord has a C# in the bass, then it's a nice 1 step bass move to D#m7b5. Or if you have an E in the bass of the A it's a nice half-step down to D#m7b5. If your A chord has an A in the bass, then you might be thinking of A-F#m6-Bm7-E7 (I-VI-II-V).

Mick

Subject: RE: Help - chord name?
From: leeneia
Date: 27 May 19 - 03:50 PM

oops

Subject: RE: Help - chord name?
From: leeneia
Date: 27 May 19 - 05:20 PM

The F# A C# make an F minor chord. Now all you need is a sophisticated term for the D#. Not my forte.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name?
From: Stanron
Date: 27 May 19 - 05:39 PM

The fixation on naming chords is a pretty recent phenomenon. In Baroque music chords were not named. Chords in some music would be fully notated or there was a musical shorthand called figured bass. In figured bass a bass note would be notated in the score and below it would be a number or numbers or other symbols which indicated intervals related to the notated note. Names for these chords were not needed.

I don't know that chord names were a 20th Century invention. Did early lute music name chords? They were not needed for piano music, that was largely notated. In the 20th Century we got the rise in popularity of mandolin banjo and guitar music and chord shapes were a useful thing for these instruments. Are there any musicology students out there who can say when chord names started being used?

Subject: RE: Help - chord name?
From: michaelr
Date: 28 May 19 - 01:16 AM

Probably contemporary with Mel Bay.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: Acorn4
Date: 28 May 19 - 03:50 AM

I stopped worrying about what chords were called years ago.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: GUEST,Spot
Date: 28 May 19 - 08:19 AM

I think may be if you do the F# it should be F#m b6, as F#m6 only indicates that the third is a minor interval from the F#?

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: G-Force
Date: 28 May 19 - 10:02 AM

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'd never heard of a half-diminished seventh, but that is what it is. Also F#m6 is OK as it gives all the right notes, even if not in the right order (now I'm sounding like Eric Morecambe). I also like 'B9 rootless', never heard that before.

D#m6 can't be right as that would give you an A#, not A. Bflat dim 7 is three-quarters wrong.

Out of interest, the context is that the chord is preceded and followed by a chord of A with an E in the bass, i.e. second inversion. (The song is the McGarrigles' 'Work Song').

Naming chords is important, otherwise how do you tell the guitarist what you want, short of playing it for him?

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: Stanron
Date: 28 May 19 - 10:29 AM

I wasn't trying to deny the usefulness of chord naming. I was just wondering if anyone knew when it started.

It was common in 20th Century sheet music to show chord names above the score. Does anyone know if there are there examples of this in 19th Century music?

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 28 May 19 - 01:18 PM

I did the Edinburgh Uni MOOC on Fundamentals of Music Theory, which I would recommend to anybody wanting to understand the names and structure of chords. But I have certainly forgotten some of it now. They suggested musictheory.net as a resource, and it is useful. It comes with a little floating digital keyboard to try stuff out on.

Regarding half diminished chords, mentioned above, these are defined as a diminished triad (root, minor third, diminished 5th, with a minor seventh.

Example in C: C Eb Gb (diminished triad), plus the minor seventh note, Bb.

Example in F# (source as above) F# A C plus E.

In a diminished seventh, you would have a diminished 7 not a minor 7th. A pile of minor third intervals.

If playing strictly within the key (ie no accidentals) of A major, then in terms of 'classical' harmonic thinking, you would not get a diminished as these feature when building chords from minor scales, not minor ones.

Hope this interests somebody.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: leeneia
Date: 28 May 19 - 01:56 PM

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: leeneia
Date: 28 May 19 - 02:01 PM

G-force, I still don't know what to call your chord, but the D# makes me suspect that your song sequed from being in A to being in E. The key of A has three sharps, (C F G), and E has four (C F G D). It would not be unusual for a melody to go from one to the other.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: G-Force
Date: 28 May 19 - 02:19 PM

Hi Leeneia, it's not a modulation to key of E, it's just a chromatic chord. The song stays firmly in A. If you go to Youtube you can hear the McGarrigles singing it. (Enjoy).

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 28 May 19 - 02:21 PM

It hits my ear as an implied first inversion of a B7 chord, with the tension 9 replacing the B (they're often substituted for the root). But it's hard to type out on here with no superscript numerals, and inversions get written in different ways depending on the idiom anyway (figured bass really doesn't help in this case, just turns everything into alphabet soup - they didn't really go in for jazz harmonies).

As has been mentioned, it's also a minor seven flat five, but the dominant-seventh inversion is the thing I naturally hear.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 28 May 19 - 02:22 PM

But then, I'm not listening in context, and haven't heard the clip.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: leeneia
Date: 28 May 19 - 04:37 PM

What's the name of the song? If it's been mentioned, I can't spot it.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: GUEST,Mark
Date: 28 May 19 - 04:52 PM

I think it's
The work song by the McGarrigles

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: Stanron
Date: 28 May 19 - 05:11 PM

B9, rootless or otherwise, functions as an embellished secondary dominant to E7 in the key of A. In no way is it uncommon in modern music. In his post of Date: 28 May 19 - 10:02 AM G-Force gives the context which is not secondary dominant but if it works it works. Having the right name or not having the right name does not affect the way the chord sounds. Call it what you want. You don't have a shortage of options.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 28 May 19 - 08:26 PM

I guess if I were writing it out I’d go for the minor seven flat five, and put it in E flat rather than D sharp (a more common spelling for that chord) even though the key has sharps - but it’s a chromatic alteration anyway so it doesn’t really matter. And the A in the bass line seems to carry on through it (which sounds great) so you’re going to have to indicate that separately anyway. Looks bit weird without superscripts - but:

Ebm7b5 /A

I think this is easier than trying to notate it as the B7/9 inversion - but you do have choices.

I haven’t heard Maria Muldaur’s recording of this in years, but I seem to recall that she starts it on the relative minor chord, i.e. (staying in the key of A): F#m to Faug5 to second inversion A and then down to the D#/Eb configuration we’ve been discussing. But I’m writing from memory and it’s been a long time: that was a vinyl LP, which means it was back in my turntable days.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 28 May 19 - 08:35 PM

Nope. Just caught a listen on YouTube. Muldaur sings it the same way as the McGarrigles. Gosh, what funny tricks memory (or age) plays on your mind. That progression does work, tho...

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 30 May 19 - 02:01 PM

Interesting point earlier on about why we name chords at all. I seem to have inherited a lot of sheet music over the years, and it seems that naming chords only became the fashion from about the late 1960s. Prior to that it was assumed that everyone could read music and would play the vertical stack of notes shown on the stave; whether it was D sharp minor thirteenth or F#demented was of little importance because players like my grandfather would have been less obsessed with chord progressions than we are today. The old tutor books I have for ‘plectrum’ guitar, mandolin, tenor banjo, etc all expected you to learn by playing the individual notes and associated scales first, before being introduced to the harder to read and finger multiple note chords. Most of us learn the other way around now, ie chords first, hence the market for sheet music with chord labels, and of course tablature so you can largely avoid the theory stuff. In fact, it’s now possible to learn songs by just watching YouTube videos of course, but that’s clearly for a different thread than this. Just a theory........

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 30 May 19 - 02:42 PM

A lot of our old family piano music (popular songs and show tunes of the day) which I inherited from my grandmothers, or else found in secondhand shops, gave guitar/banjo/ukulele fingering diagrams, often with a chord symbol but not always. It dated from before the days when music reproduction-technology really took off, and sound quality was pretty low; so much of its use was live - dance bands, vaudeville etc - and sheet music sales were more of a thing than now. I'm not sure when that practice got started, though. But I have certainly seen it in early 20th-century stuff.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 30 May 19 - 05:28 PM

Yes, some sheet music found in my grandparent’s piano stool, like Long Way to Tipperary, had ukulele chord diagrams included, but it wasn’t the norm. Even as recently as the 1970s and 80s, songbooks of popular songs (eg Paul Simon) were obviously being produced by pianists, with some often inaccurate and inappropriate guitar chord diagrams.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: Stanron
Date: 30 May 19 - 05:36 PM

My understanding is that in the early 20th Century mandolin, banjo and guitar were popular instruments. I've read about mandolin and banjo bands and and would not be surprised if this kind of 'hobby' music used chord names above a score. I've seen an old photo of a mandolin band and one person is holding a guitar. Presumably this person played chords.

Guest Jerry points out that there was no need for music that was for solo piano to name chords. The pianist was expected to to read and play what was written in the score.

Chordal accompaniment must have come in with bands. Banjo or guitar for chords would have been more practical than piano for a band that travelled, and with guitar or banjo chord names would have been useful.

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 30 May 19 - 05:54 PM

Just looking through a bunch of sheet music scans I have on the computer, it looks as if ukulele fretboard diagrams came in in the late '20s and guitar fretboard diagrams (some with chord names) came in about the mid 30s.

Interestingly (!?) of the many Hawaiian inspired titles that appeared after the 1915 exhibition up to the early 20s, none seem to have ukulele diagrams.

Mick

Subject: RE: Help - chord name? / chord naming
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 31 May 19 - 03:53 AM

Yes, I daresay the explosion of Banjo and Mandolin bands was the reason for sheet music also wanting to cater for the ‘amateur’ or hobbyist musician, who probably didn’t read music, or certainly not piano scores. I know that I have defaced lots of old sheet music by adding in chord names, where there were none, but where they were indicated in the note combinations straddling the bass and treble staves. Some of the chords used or implied were also quite complex and extended ones, diminisheds, augmenteds etc, making it difficult at times to decide on a chord name, which I suppose is where this thread all started.