Minneapolis Music Lessons – Chord Spelling
Understanding Chord Symbols
With the growing fascination with Jazz and other varieties of music, I come across increasingly more individuals wanting to know about chord symbols and chord construction. Although you will find many books out there on the market, there is very little explanation of how chords symbols are interpreted. I’d love to share some of my insight with all you music aficionados. In many song sheets, chords are given for guitar or keyboard players. Functional names aren’t used for this purpose. Rather, the root and quality of the chord are given in what could be called lead-sheet notation (for instance, Amaj and F#dim7). Chord symbols are made up of three component parts: 1. The ROOT The alphabetical name of a chord. i.e. A, Bb, G F# etc. 2. The Chord Type Suggesting either Major, minor, dominant, augmented or diminished. 3. The extension: Tones included with the fundamental 3 note chord (triad) that changes its sound although not its type. Extensions are showed by scale step numbers i.e. 9, 11, 13
Here are the basic chord types: MAJOR indicated by GMaj., GMa, GM or just G (Note: the capital “M” is used to designate Major chords.) Major chords are sometimes written without chord type designation. Symbols are also utilized to designate Major chords.
Minor Indicated by Gmin., Gmi, Gm or G- (Note: The lower case “m” is utilized to designate minor chords)
Dominant 7 Indicated with just the root and extension numbers. Since some major chords and all dominant 7 chords could be written without chord type designations, the following will assist you to differentiate between a major chord and a dominant chord:
If the First extension number following the root or letter name of the chord is 7 or greater, and it does not particularly say major or minor then it is really a dominant chord.
Sample: C7b5, C13, C9 and C7sus4 are all dominant chords, but Cm11 is a minor chord and CMaj.9 is a major chord.
If the First extension number following the root or letter name of the chord is 6 or below, it is a major chord.
Example: C6/9, C2, Csus4 are all major chords
Augmented These are three note chords indicated by G aug, G+, or G#5 EXCEPTION: G+7 is constantly a dominant chord as is G7#5
Diminished Indicated by G dim, Gdim7, or G�, or G�7
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