Guide to Chord Formation by Howard Wright (Howard@jmdl.com)
Chapter 7 : X/Y Type Chords
7.0 : X/Y type chords
This seems to be a commonly misunderstood term.
If a chord is written as something like
C/G then it simply
means that you play the
chord given by the
first letter, with
the
bass note given by the
second letter - in this example, we
have
C major with a G bass note.
Chords like these may have a bass note which is
already part of the chord itself, as in this example (C major is made up of the notes
C E G, so the G bass is part of the chord) or they may have a bass note which is 'outside' the chord, something like
E/A (
A is not part of the
E major chord).
Working out what notes are in these type of chords presents
no extra
problems - simply work out the notes in the chord
given by the first letter, then add the bass note.
These X/Y type of chords can get more complicated than straight
major/minor chords with things like
Asus2/C#, but the principle
is the same.
- To work out this chord, start with Asus2.
- spelling = 1st 2nd 5th
Look up the intervals in the table of intervals to get the number of semitones you have to count up for each note.
-
2nd = 2 semitones up from A = B
5th = 7 semitones up from A = E
So Asus2 = A B E
Therefore Asus2/C# = C# A B E .
(It's standard practice to '
spell' chords from
low to
high.)
Guide to Chord Formation by Howard Wright
Reformatted and noded (with permission) by Space Butler
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