Every possible Chord Symbol EXPLAINED

this video is sponsored by tom play there are all sorts of symbols that you can encounter when you're reading a chord chart sometimes the exact same chord can be labeled with a variety of different symbols so today i'm going to go through every possible chord symbol that you could encounter on a chord chart to make sure that you know what to do when you encounter it so starting with the simplest chord symbol we could get if the chord symbol is literally just the alphabetical letter in this case c then we play a major triad based on that note c major very occasionally the majorness of the triad will be specified with the word match but almost always it will be simply just the alphabetical letter if there is a lowercase m following the letter then it's calling for a minor triad built from that note c minor note that it should be a lowercase m if it's an uppercase m this could actually be referring to c major also if you've ever read a jazz chart like from the real book you'll know that another way of writing a minor chord is with a subtraction sign a minus sign so c minor could be labeled like this or like this if we're given the word dim it means that we're meant to play a diminished triad chord c diminished and a diminished triad can also be notated with a little degree mark a small circle likewise if we're given the word org then we're meant to play an augmented triad c augmented an augmented triad can also be labeled with an addition marker plus sign or occasionally you'll literally just get sharp five written in brackets after the chord name indicating that whatever chord is here you should sharpen its fifth degree which is ultimately what an augmented chord is if the chord symbol is followed by the word sus4 it means that you're meant to play a suspended fourth triad if it says sus2 then you're meant to play a suspended second triad and interestingly if it just says sus it's referring to the sus4 sus4 is the more common and kind of default suspended chord if there is a seven placed after your letter then it's asking you to play a dominant seventh chord c dominant seventh we don't have to write the word dom or dominant if it says seven it's assumed that it's a dominant seventh the same applies for minor chords if it says c minor seven then we're meant to play a c minor with the dominant seventh on it now if we want a major seventh instead that will be specified it will say match seven or sometimes it will actually have a triangle like this followed by the number seven this triangle particularly in jazz charts means major and occasionally you'll literally just get the triangle and that will be telling you major seven so a major seven chord could be notated like this like this or like this now if we want a minor triad but with the major seventh on it then we'll usually wind up with something that looks like this a small m followed by a large m followed by seven the lowercase m is minor the uppercase m is major a c minor chord with a major seven on top diminished chords get a bit interesting when you come to sevenths if the chord symbol says c dim seven or c little degree mark seven then we are to play this chord a c diminished seven chord you'll notice that the seven of this chord is actually what you might sometimes consider the sixth degree of the scale but don't get too confused about that the best way to think about a diminished seven chord is that it's a stack of minor thirds now we have another type of diminished seven chord which is the half diminished seven chord which will be notated with this weird symbol the degree mark but with a little line through it this is indicating that we effectively want a c minor seven chord but with its fifth flattened that's a half diminished seven c half diminished and sometimes to avoid confusion with this weird symbol this chord is instead simply labeled as c minor seven flat five literally spelling out what we're meant to do a c minor seven but you flatten the fifth now that brings us to nines elevens and thirteens what you can call upper chord extensions and with these chords we get some fairly interesting rules if we get c9 for example we don't just take a c chord and add the ninth degree of the scale that would actually be c add nine instead if it just says nine and doesn't say the word add we have to stack up to that ninth ie we have to add in the seventh degree as well so perhaps a more accurate name for this chord would be c seven add nine but we don't write that we just write c nine if it said c eleven we once again stack up this time including the 7th and the 9th on our way up to the 11th degree if we just wanted the 11th degree added on top of a c chord we'd write c add 11 and the same thing applies for 13. we stack up the 7th 9th and 11th on our way to the 13th now as you can see this has resulted in a very tall and dense chord which is why although this is a theoretically full complete c13 chord in practice not all of these notes will be played the fifth degree or the third degree will sometimes be omitted which takes me on to the chord symbol omit if we saw this chord symbol it's telling us to voice this chord as usual but to then remove the fifth degree sometimes rather than the word omit you'll get the word no although i sometimes find this confusing because i think of no as number so sometimes when you want a note removed from the chord voicing you can specify that by saying omit or no but actually in practice if you wrote a c13 chord on your chord chart a lot of players will emit notes from it anyway now with upper chord extensions we can also have alterations we can have sharp and flattened ninths elevenths and thirteenths and for this we once again have to remember the stacking rule if we wanted to label this chord for example which is a e13 chord but the 13th degree has been flattened we can't actually call it e flat 13. and this is because of the simple misunderstanding that could happen where someone thinks you're saying e flat 13 rather than e with a flat 13 on it so instead we call this an e 11 flat 13 because that's what it is it's an e 11 chord with the flat 13 added on top and as you can see from what i've been writing these alterations are usually put in brackets to make it clear that they're separate from the main chord type now what do we do with this chord c major nine well we do the exact same thing we did with c9 but rather than stacking up a dominant seventh like we did last time we stack up a major seventh the major here in our major nine chord isn't actually referring to some sort of major 9th it's referring to the 7th within our chord the 7th that we're going to stack up regardless of whether it's c9 c major 9 or even c minor 9 the note we add the 9 is always the same and that also applies with 11 and 13. a c major 11 for example which for fun let's put as a triangle is just like a c11 but the 7th degree is a major 7th not a dominant 7th tom play is an app that gives you access to over 40 000 pieces of sheet music however tom play is far more than just the sheet music library the tom play app can also create a custom backing track for you to play along with which means for example if you wanted to learn the piano part for bohemian rhapsody you could actually have tom plays sing along as you play to give you a better sense of where you are in the piece [Music] their library features a wide range of music including classic pop and rock hits classical music film music and jazz standards you can try tom play out for free for two weeks and also right now they're offering 30 off an annual subscription use the links down below to find out more if the chord symbol we're given just says five after it like c5 then it's asking for what you can call a power chord literally just c and then it's fifth above it no third in the chord now this means of course that c5 is technically a two note chord so because we usually like our chords to have at least three notes in them the root note will often be doubled up an octave higher if we're given this symbol then we're meant to play a c major chord with the sixth degree added on top you can basically think of it as saying add six but we just don't have to write add we just write six now this is a common point of confusion if it said c minor six we still add the sixth degree of the major scale not the sixth degree of the minor scale and the confusion's occurring there because of the way that that chord sounds when i say c minor six i'm not saying a c chord with a minor six added on top i'm saying a c minor chord with the sixth degree on top if i did want the minor sixth degree on top then i would have to specify that by writing flat six and i could do that simply by just putting in brackets flat 6 or to make it extra clear i could write the word add as well a similar type of chord you might see is a 6 9 chord a c6 9 would be a c6 chord with the 9th degree added on top so a full name for this would be c add six add nine a chord symbol that only really occurs in jazz music is alt c alt is asking us to create a c altered chord now the altered chord isn't one specific type of chord it's a variety of different chords that we can create if we're asked to play a c alt chord then we need to play a c dominant chord a c7 for example but the fifth degree of that chord needs to be either flattened or sharpened and or we can also add a flat or sharp nine on top of that now we might get a chord symbol that looks like this c slash e with chords like this with slash chords what you're expected to do is play the chord on the left hand side as normal but then have the note on the right hand side as the lowest pitch in that chord as the bass note in this example c over e this is actually an inversion because a c major triad already includes the note e within it so by placing it at the bottom of the chord rather than in the middle where we'd usually find it we're inverting the chord but not all slash chords are inversions slash chords are ultimately just a way of communicating i want this chord but with this bass note so for example we could have g over a like this which is technically actually an a11 chord but writing it as g over a is a more intuitive and simple way to do that the only other types of chords that i've not mentioned yet are what i would refer to as miscellaneous chords combinations of notes that don't really have a standardized way of referring to them and what we do in those situations is we just find a logical way to describe the chord so for example if we wanted a c major chord but for the second degree included as well we could refer to that maybe as a c two chord or a c add two chord if you wanted to be extra clear so now let's put our knowledge to the test and see if we can label some of these chords so let's start with this one c e flat g b flat f most experienced players will be able to recognize minor and major triads when they see them and for example here at the bottom of the chord we can see c e flat and g which is a c minor triad so that's a good starting point now we just need to factor in the b flat and the f well the b flat is the seventh degree c e flat g and b flat is a c minor seven chord okay so we've got c minor seven what about this f well the f is the eleventh degree of the scale so we can simply write c minor seven at eleven and now all of the notes in this chord are accounted for the thing is though when it's not simply a major or minor triad most chords will have more than one way that you can label them and it's sort of your job to come up with the most sensible and logical name because ultimately the whole point of labeling the chord is to communicate information to the player so we came up with c minor 7 add 11 for this chord but alternatively you could describe it as e flat add 9 over c both of these chord symbols result in the same set of notes in the same order it just comes down to which you think will be the most logical in the context of the music some chords in fact will have such a weird selection of notes that there's actually no real simple way to describe the chord so for example if we had this selection of notes g a e f b and c so how we started labeling the chord before is we looked at the selection of notes and tried to see any familiar chords in there like major and minor chords but this time there's no real starting point that's standing out to me and this is ultimately because this chord isn't really based on thirds most chord types major minor augmented diminished 7 9 13 etc are based on stacking thirds up but once you build chords by stacking other intervals our common naming system begins to break down and you have to come up with sort of more inventive names to label the chords so how do we label this chord well what we can do is start by trying to find the notes of a triad in the chord even if they're not in the correct order so for example we do have g and b which are a third they're not next to each other in the chord but they're a third so they're sort of a starting point of course we don't have the d that would complete a g major chord but sometimes as i mentioned earlier you might emit the fifth degree of the chord so let's just pretend for the moment that this is a g major chord so that factors in g and b so how do we account for the other four notes well in the context of a g chord the f would be the dominant seventh so that gives us g seven the a would be the ninth so that actually gives us g nine the c would be the 11 and the e would be the 13. so now we actually have a pretty logical looking chord g13 and that factors in all of the notes the only thing as i mentioned earlier is that we don't have the fifth of the chord so we can just write omit five and that gives us g13 omit 5. of course what will happen is if i give this chord symbol to someone g13 emit 5 they're very unlikely to play in this exact voicing in this exact order of notes because there's nothing in the chord symbol that's actually specifying the order in which the notes will be voiced if i really really wanted it to be voiced in this exact way then my only option really is to notate it on sheet music so g13 omit 5 is the most logical name i think for this set of notes but as i mentioned earlier particularly once you start getting into these weird selection of notes when they're not based on thirds you can come up with all sorts of names that are technically correct for example we could label this chord as a minor 9 flat 13 over g the a c and e are a minor the g is the seventh the b is the ninth and then the f is the flat 13 and because g is the lowest pitch not a we call it slash g or it could be c major 7 add 11 add 13 over g you can sort of come up with any chord name you like as long as it uses one of the notes in the set as its supposed root note so for example if i wanted to make e the root note then this would now be an e minor chord with a flat 9 added the 11 added and a flat 13 added and it would be over g all four of these names are legitimate ways of labeling this chord and it's down to you the person writing the chord chart to decide what the most sensible option is [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 547,870

Keywords: chord symbols, chords, explained, augmented, diminished, △, Cø, C°, omit, minor, major, upper chord extension, 11, 9 chord, flat 13

Id: aMLdWrZqwLg

Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 17 2022