COTD 11: D-7♭9

One of my hopes with this blog is to name and popularize cool chords that very few people play. Could this be one?

D-7♭9
X5354X

Now that doesn't sound like much, but the other inversions are interesting. I hope it's more legible when I set off all numbers with parentheses wherever parentheses are needed:

D-7♭9
4th: X(6)(10)(7)(6)X
1st: X(8)(12)(8)(13)X
3rd: X(15)(13)(10)(15)X

I ordered these inversions so they would climb up the neck, not so they would be in order. The inversions are named by which note goes in the bass:

Root in bass: no inversion (or zeroeth inversion, if you like)
Third in bass: first inversion
Fifth in bass: second inversion
Seventh in bass: third inversion
Ninth in bass: fourth inversion
Eleventh in bass: fifth inversion
Thirteenth in bass: sixth inversion

Since this chord has no fifth degree, it doesn't have a second inversion and skips straight to the third and fourth. Alright, enough of that inversion crap.

I promised myself I would lay off the dominant 13ths, but this voicing doubles as a modal F13. Going back two posts, I said the formula for a dominant 13th was 1, 3, 5, ♭7, 9, 11, 13, which we typically abbreviate as 1, 3, ♭7, 13. If we're going for an ambiguous sound, we can swap out the 3rd for a 5th, leaving a chord that is "modal", i.e. neither major nor minor

I'm sorry if you think these sound like crap. I remember geeking out over them when I played them on the uke, so I was excited to see how they sounded on the guitar. The drop-3 versions (which generally lie on strings 2, 3, 4, and 6) might sound better. Someday I'll figure those out and report back.

COTD #10: C-Δ7#5

Why are you reading this blog? If it's to learn academic chord voicings that sound terrible and have no practical use, you're in luck!

C-Δ7#5
X3644X

It's pronounced as "C minor major 7 sharp five". Above is the root position. While I'm at it, I should give you the first, second, and third inversions:

C-Δ7#5
X6959X
X(11)(10)9(12)X
X(14)(13)(13)(13)X or X2111X

When you buy and play through the Wilmott book, it will ask up front that you learn all the seventh chords with C as the root *that you could possibly want to play*. This turns out to be C7(sus4), plus the four standard types of seventh chords: major, minor, dominant, and minor-major, each with both flatted and raised fifth degrees, except this one. He didn't see the need for this voicing, though I imagine it shows up later in some context.

One other factoid about this one before we leave it off forever: it consists of an A♭ power chord, with both the minor and major 3rds forming the other two notes, Swapping the 5th (E♭) for a ♭7th (G♭) makes a much more normal-sounding A♭7#9:

X(11)(10)(11)(12)X

Hey, add a #5 and that's the first chord I shared. I should quit now, having come full-circle.

COTD #9: B13 (five ways)

The formula for a dominant 13th chord is 1, 3, 5, ♭7, 9, 11, 13, which is not playable unless you have a 7-string (which Mick Thomson of Slipknot once called "gay." Do something what that information if you wish. Wait, actually don't.) Typically, we exclude the 5th, 9th, and 11th, leaving 1, 3, ♭7, 13, as in this standard voicing from any chord book:

B13

7X789X

This may be the only dominant 13th form some people know. I'll try to fix that. Keep the ♭7th and 13th degrees where they are, but play the 3rd down an octave on the A string and the root up an octave on the G string. This is the result:

B13

X6749X

Brutal. This is the standard drop-2 form of a first-inversion dominant 13th chord ("first-inversion" just means the third, D#, is in the bass rather than B."Drop-2" I plan to explain in detail later). The 5-fret stretch is enough to put most folks off it. If you're looking for a workaround, remember, the one note in this voicing that you don't need is the root. It's still a plain vanilla 13th chord even if you swap out the root for the 9th, 11th, or 5th. That's what we'll do, and in that order. First, the 9th substitution:

B13

X6769X

This is also a second-inversion AΔ7♭5, and a good choice if you want to play this chord without changing the sound much. Not so with the 11th substitution:

B13

X7789X

This is also an EΔ11, and a serious departure from the plain vanilla B13. You may wonder why I changed the bass note. Swapping the 11th for the 9th in the above voicing (i.e. X6799X) would create a ♭9 tension between the fifth and third strings. I tend to avoid those per Bret Wilmott's advice, but you need not. Anyway, I play the 11th on the fifth string and the 3rd (up an octave as a 10th) on the third string. 

I already covered this shape, but here's the fifth substitution:

B13

X9789X

This is the best substitution if you want the chord to be heard as a dominant thirteenth but are looking for something other than the root substitution.

COTD #8: D♭13#9

I plan to write a rag based on this chord someday. Hold me to it.

D♭13#9
X43300

The rootless form of this voicing has tritone symmetry, which means the figure has the same notes when you translate it by a tritone. So, without the root the chord looks like this:

D♭13#9
XX3300

Don't worry, it's still D♭13#9 even without the D♭. The remaining notes, low to high, are F, B♭, C♭, and E (the ♭7th degree of D♭ is C♭, not B.) Now take this figure and translate it up 6 frets:

?
XX9966

What notes are these? Well, B (or C♭) , E, F, and A# (or B♭). The same notes. The diminished 7th chord has this property also, but the notes repeat every three frets, not just every six. The tritone symmetry means that D♭13#9 and G13#9 only differ by their roots. All the other notes are the same. Observe:

G13#9
3X3300

COTD #7: E-9

Even less time today. This one is from one of the saddest songs I know: Center Aisle by Caedmon' Call. I believe it's also used in The Wrong Man Was Convicted by the Barenaked Ladies*. Both are worth a listen. Note that Center Aisle is capo III. Not sure about The Wrong Man Was Convicted.

E-9
024030

The beauty lies in the tension between the 9th (F#) on the 4th string and the minor 3rd on the open 3rd string.


*Honorable mention goes to another Christian song: Love Song by Third Day. The first chord is an E-(9), the parentheses indicating the absence of a 7th. That chord is also a sixth-inversion GΔ13! The honorableness of the mention is because I no longer consider this song generally "worth a listen," though it certainly is if you're an evangelical Christian, or a particularly emotive individual with nothing against Christianity.

E-(9)
024000

Chord(s) of the Day #6: B♭Δ7#11 and CΔ7#11

No time today, but a couple of voicings that were mentioned in that lost Chord of the Week blog. The first one is the lead-off chord of a Stone Temple Pilots song. I don't remember which one offhand.

B♭Δ7#11
X13230

and the mysterious, slightly ominous Charlie's Angels cut-to-commercial chord:

CΔ7#11
X32002

These are almost identical, except that the the major third is played up an octave as a tenth in the B♭ version, and as an actual third in the C version.

Chord of the Day #5: G13

I haven't done a 13th chord yet, so it's time. G13:

X5345X

Like that D11 from earlier, this voicing doesn't contain the root note. The perspicacious will recognize it as a D-6/9, which is certainly what it should be called when playing it as a D minor chord. It's also a G13, with the fifth degree substituted for the root. The third (B), flatted seventh (F), and thirteenth (E) are what really define G13, so they're all you need to play. Note that those are the defining notes on C#7#9 and CΔ11 as well. If you play in this reductionistic way, your bassist can decide for you what chord you're actually playing.

I'm running out of gas on these. I suspect I'll thin them out to a more sustainable pace, maybe 2-3 a week. I'll consider this a success as long as it's not zero per week.

Negative Ruminations

I'm not feeling as inspired today as during the rest of the week. My 9-5 is killing me slowly, as always. That's not to say that my 9-5 is a bad thing, just that it occupies so much of my time that I sometimes confuse it for life itself, i.e. the thing that's really killing me. And all of us.

Chord of the Day #4: F#11

In my freshman year at Cedarcrest High School in Duvall, WA I took the required word processing/IT class. This would have been 1998 or 1999. It was then that I got my first email address, and started wasting time on the Internet in earnest. I discovered a phenomenal Chord of the Week website that doesn't exist anymore. I may try to recreate some of those entries here, like the one for the B-7 chord in that Beck song Tropicalia. Another of the entries introduced me to this lovely thing, F#11:

244300

Theoretically speaking, this chord is missing one note: a 9th. Here are the generic formulae for the different "number" types of chords:

7th: root, third, fifth, seventh
9th: root, third, fifth, seventh, ninth
11th: root, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh
13th: root, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh, thirteenth

Note that under this system, theoretical 13th chords are unplayable on the guitar because they require seven notes. But hey, an 11th chord only has six, so we can play those, right? Wrong. Cramming all six notes of a theoretical 11th chord into a single guitar voicing worth playing is no mean feat, and I've only discovered one voicing that does it. Taking that chord above, if you can manage to stretch your little finger to replace that doubled root on the fourth string with a ninth (G#), you'll get this F#11 voicing:

246300

This has everything. In fact, it's a perfect theoretical dominant 11th, with two minor changes: the guide tones, the third and seventh, have both been raised an octave. That's it. Also, if you want an F major 9 #11, what I would call a Lydian 11th, just drop the figure down one fret and let the two high strings ring out:

135200

These theoretical voicings are not tremendously useful on the guitar. In most cases, we strip a chord down to its elements, usually three, four, or five notes that convey all the necessary harmonic material. Even 9th, 11th, and 13th chords can be stripped down to three notes so long as no other changes (e.g. a #5 or ♭9) are being made.

Happy stretching.

Brandon

Chord of the Day #3: CΔ7#13 (?)

I don't have a good name for this chord, at least not off the top of my head. And not in the context where I suggest you use it. Here's CΔ7#13:

X3X300

It's basically just a C note, a major 3rd (E), and both a major and a flatted seventh degree. In order to avoid having to explain this (somehow) in the name of the chord, I renamed the ♭7 a #13 . This is a cluster voicing, in that it sounds three (or more) pitch classes that are next to each other in the chromatic scale: B♭, B, and C. Though the notes are not played consecutively in minor seconds, the bluesy dissonance it still pronounced. In fact, most other cluster voicings are too ugly for my ears, though I hear Nick Drake used them effectively.

I tend to play it in a turnaround for blues in E. Try this (preferably hammering on that major third note on the E):

E           E7/D     C#-9      CΔ7#13 B7#9
0XX100  X5645X  X4244X  X3X300 X2123X

I just made that up here on the ferry, so it may be garbage. Let me know. Note: I generally play fingerstyle, so you'll notice a lot of in-chord string gaps. Here's a close voicing of the same chord:

X3230X

Enjoy?

Chord of the day #2: D11

"Close voicings" are chords where all the notes are confined to a single octave. They are not easy to play on the guitar, for reasons I'll explain later. Here's one of my favorites, D11:

X9555X

You may wonder, where's the D in your D11 chord? I don't need one. This chord has the three necessary ingredients of a dominant 11 chord: the 11th (G) and two guide tones, the 3rd (F#) and ♭7th (C). The fourth note is optional, and you have one of three options: the root (D), the 5th (A), or the 9th (E). I've opted for the 9th, so from low to high, this voicing consists of a a 3rd, 11th, ♭7th, and 9th. It sounds better higher up on the neck, where the dissonance between the 3rd and 11th isn't as muddy.

A lot of guitar chord books will offer this modal voicing as a dominant 11 chord (here instantiated in G):

3X321X

I don't consider this a proper dominant 11th chord because it doesn't have a 3rd degree. It is therefore neither major nor minor, and doesn't quite follow the standard third-stacking framework of Western harmony. I would rather describe it as an F/G, F(add 9)/G, or A-7#5/G. You could also call it a G11(no 3rd).

Aside! The greatest guitar chord book ever written is Mel Bay's Complete Book of Harmony Theory and Voicing by Bret Wilmott. Buy it.

Chord of the Day #1: G#7#5#9

Hello. A friend of mine has suggested I start a Guitar Chord of the Day blog, so here it is, my old blog recycled as a Guitar Chord of the Day blog.

Generally, I'll choose voicings that can be expressed as a combination of six single digits and/or X's, representing strings 6 through 1, in that order. For example, here's C major:

X32010

Hopefully that's clear. The chord of the day is G#7#5#9. If you're playing in E or C#- it may come in handy:

4X4500

Jarring, eh? I arranged the Sarah McLaughlin song Hold On (in D♭), and used a bunch of bluesy voicings like this one. I also play it on a capo 5 version of Rain Dogs in F# minor.

Note that this is one note off from a nice euphonic E(add 9)/G# (the same as G#-7#5: 4X4400). The odd note out is the B# on the third string. Why B# and not C, you ask? Because I spelled this as a G#, and B#, not C, is the third degree of a G# major scale. (In equal temperament...) this chord is identical to A♭7#5#9; the only difference being the spelling. I chose to spell it as a G# because that is how it is spelled in the keys of E and C# minor, which are much more common on guitar than D♭ major and minor, where the chord would be spelled as an A♭. In fact, D♭ minor is a theoretical key (8 flats!) that you would almost never see.