Chord list and inversions

[Stefan Robertson]

So I'm putting together a chord list and learning my inversions

Please let me know of any useful chords I may be missing

Maj
6
6/9
M7
M7#5
M9
M7#11
M13
min
m6
m7b5
m9b5
m11b5
m7b5b13
m7
m9
m11
m13
mM7
mM9
mM11
mM13
7
7#9
7b9
7#11
7b13
9
13
sus2
sus4
7sus4
7sus4#9
7sus4b9
9sus4
9sus4b11
11sus4b13
13sus4
aug
dim
dim7

[Stefan Robertson]

I think I just saw a 7#5#9 is missing

Any others?

[Jim Cohen]

Stefan, I think you will be adequately served by this list. Looking for more is just OCD.

[Stefan Robertson]

Cool was just thinking in terms of Jazz if there are any others that are used that I haven't thought about so once I learn the inversions I should feel a little more comfortable for chord melody freedom.

As Jimmy Bruno said "you don't know your inversions - learn them"

[Stefan Robertson]

Stefan, I think you will be adequately served by this list. Looking for more is just OCD.

Hey Jim awesome

I bought your jazz album off of Apple Music.

So many questions had no idea you were on the forum much less the non - pedal.

[David M Brown]

Perhaps the minor7b5b9?

The list included:

m7b5
m9b5
m11b5
m7b5b13

[Guy Cundell]

This from the Band in A Box manual

http://www.pgmusic.com/tutorial_chordlist.htm

[Stefan Robertson]

This from the Band in A Box manual

http://www.pgmusic.com/tutorial_chordlist.htm

Wow that is a huge list. Will take me at least 2-3 years to get that down.

But looks great. Thanks Guy.

[Stefan Robertson]

Perhaps the minor7b5b9?

The list included:

m7b5
m9b5
m11b5
m7b5b13

Thanks David look great.


Guy
Just re-assessed the list and other than information overload have noticed that it looks like it's missing some key chords in the minor, and dim7 department.

[Stefan Robertson]

Also

Are many of these just computer algorithms rather than actual chords in the suspended section.

C7susb5, C13susb5, C7susb5b13, C9susb5, C9susb5b13, C7susb5b9, C13susb5b9, C7susb5b9b13, C7susb5#9, C13susb5#9, C7susb5#9b13, C7sus#5, C13sus#5, C7sus#5#11, C13sus#5#11, C9sus#5, C9sus#5#11, C7sus#5b9, C13sus#5b9, C7sus#5b9#11, C13sus#5b9#11, C7sus#5#9, C13sus#5#9#11, C7sus#5#9#11, C13sus#5#9#11

Like how weird would a C7susb5 sound. Is it a Sus 4 and a 5 or is it a sus 2 which is really a 9th

[Guy Cundell]

C7sus(4)b5...... dark, dramatic... beautiful!


example on D# (or Eb)

[Stefan Robertson]

Hmm... sounds pretty ... weird and unusual but really is it used.

[Brian McGaughey]

With all due respect, "learning" all possible chords and their inversions strikes me as something that would limit ones expression than enhance it. As long as one understands the feelings evoked by notes outside the major triad of a chord, the suspension of the 3rd scale degree and one understands the theory behind the construction, a person would be better served to train their ears at a piano to the feelings evoked by "color" notes and their relation to the root. In my opinion of course.

A complete list seems like a diversion of some sort. Insert wink emoticon here. For me I couldn't imagine how it could help. That is just me though.

[Andy Volk]

And then, there are apparently "Mu" chords ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_chord

Never heard of this before a few days ago.

[Mike Neer]

Learn how to build the chords on the staff, analyze the triads contained within the chords, but it is overkill to learn how to play these big chords out of context.

When I was a kid, I had the Mel Bay Chord Encyclopedia, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. I learned that it's more important to understand the basic functions of chords and usable extensions in orchestration and voice leading. Besides, when steel players play those big two-fisted piano chords, it makes me cringe a little because there is no room for anything else. In chords, sometimes less is more. That's my two cents.

[Stefan Robertson]

I will have to respectfully disagree as When I'm learning a song using a chord melody. I currently have to look at a print off of these chords I made.

If I simply knew them I would just recall them as and when needed.

[Mike Neer]

chord melody is a different ball game, and I get your point. Often, though, the melody is a note added to a chord and does not necessarily require building the chord all the way up the extension ladder.

[Stefan Robertson]

chord melody is a different ball game, and I get your point. Often, though, the melody is a note added to a chord and does not necessarily require building the chord all the way up the extension ladder.

Hate to say it Mike, as you are very rarely wrong. But I will have to side with Jimmy Bruno and Frank Vignola on this one. "Learn your inversions"

If I knew them well I would be building jazz songs on the fly chord melody style and would approach outside lines easily. That is the dream and those two masters seem to stress the importance of knowing your inversions.

Never thought the day would come where I would say it but I disagree but I do as Vignola was stating that outside lines can be approached with single notes or chord substitutions with inversions.

[Andy Volk]

Sometimes a very thick chordal texture played by the same instrument just becomes mud. Yet, when a complex voicing is spread across registers or distributed among instruments it can work beautifully. Just because you CAN play a C13#5b9 containing all those notes doesn't mean you'd necessarily want to do so. Jim Hall did masterful comping using just the 3rd + 7th or 3rd + 7 + one altered tone from complex chords.

Big Band guitarist Allan Ruess based his whole style on canny use of inversions. The kind of inversion thinking you're talking about is very well described in this clip.
It's obviously oriented to standard guitar playing but the concept holds true for steel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6HGwZ_QDqg

[Mike Neer]

I've never said don't learn your inversions; in fact, if I've ever said anything, it's learn your inversions.
Start with triads and then 7th (maj, min, dom). Master them.

Any more than that is simply not going to be possible on a non-pedal steel guitar in a fixed tuning. You may find a voicing here and there, but inverting them will be difficult. For instance, take a chord like C7#9. How many inversions can you find and which are the important voices in the chord? Only 3 notes are needed to create that chord, so why would we need the 5 notes in the spelling of it? The root and 5th are expendable.

I base what I do now on a lot of years of playing guitar, and discovering what is and isn't possible on steel, and if it is, whether or not it's worth the effort. I realize everyone has different goals, but a lot of music can be made with fewer tools. It's a matter of knowing what to do with them and understanding it.

By all means, learn it all on paper. In high school, I filled notebooks with scribblings of chord construction when I should have been paying attention to the teachers.

[Stefan Robertson]

Mike and Andy

You guys are awesome just had to say.

I only say this as inversions offer different melody notes on top for us on steel.

So for example Mike's query C7#9.

I have 10 different inversions and would love over time to know them all so if I see a C7 in a piece of music and the melody note is either a C, E, G, Bb, D# I can say let me try my C7#9 and BOOM b0b's your uncle.


But I'm not going to lie it will take me years to learn them all and years to implement but we all have to start somewhere. And like many of us here I have no intention of going to Pedal Steel so I need to squeeze every last bit of juice out of my Lap Steel Guitar where possible.

[Stefan Robertson]

Just cause I have noticed thus far for example that a lot of jazz when a 7th chord is there the melody note is the 5th at some point in the song.

So even though the 3rd, b7th and #9 are the core voices quite often if you don't have one with the 5th on top or even the root at times you have to leave it out as a chord and play the single note or sub.


Andy:

I think the master of core voices simply none better than lenny breau

[Mike Neer]

My friend, I believe you are confusing the meaning of inversion as relates to chords.

[Stefan Robertson]

My friend, I believe you are confusing the meaning of inversion as relates to chords.

Oh no...don't say that...Wait I'll message you to pick your brains.

[Guy Cundell]

Stephan, it is apparent from your posts that you have progressed to book 3 without having completed book 1. I would advise getting a good general text like ‘Edly’s Music Theory for Practical People’ and carefully do the whole thing, filling in gaps. It is fine to study advanced texts like Mark Devine’s Jazz Theory book but unless your underlying knowledge is good, you will fall in a hole.

BTW, Devine’s scale/chord theory approach first appeared in John Mehegan’s 1959 book ‘Jazz improvisation’. While it is popular in many (most) undergraduate jazz courses around the world, it is by no means the only way up the mountain.

Developing musicians often consider music theory to be an absolute that can be learned by rote. However, the more you progress, the more it becomes clear that that is not the case. Within the jazz context there are the more basic texts like the Dick Grove series or Jerry Croker’s work, but as you progress you come across more refined approaches like Devine, George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic concept or Dave Liebman’s Chromatic Approach to Jazz Harmony. Additionally there are any number of books by players outlining their personal approaches such as Steve Kahn’s excellent ‘Contemporary Chord Concepts”. All of these offer different perspectives.

Alongside this is a huge tract of music theory from the classical canon that intersects jazz theory. There are the theoretical writings of composing greats such as Schoenberg, Messiaen and Hindemith to add to detailed theory texts and courses such as those by Walter Piston and Vincent Perichetti. Classical theory is often dismissed by jazzers to their own detriment. I remember hearing my first Debussy in class and blurting out how this must have been written in the 1960s. Well, no, 1910 actually, when the jazzers were still blowing into fruit jars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY9Zrq7CK9M

When I first attended undergraduate composer’s school, I was a rock guitarist with jazz inclinations and pretty unconfident. I felt I had to analyze and label everything I wrote to give it legitimacy. But the old masters there told me “Chill, man. Are you happy with how it sounds? Well then, end of story.”

When it comes to chords, I would argue that while the sounds are important, the names are not. What is important is the context and how one chord leads to another… that is Voice Leading. That is what makes harmony work and is a great challenge on our instrument.

Finally, it is good remember the Buddhist saying “When the student is ready, the teacher appears”. I believe that this is true for all musicians, from the highest to the lowest. And what should be remembered is that the ‘teacher’ may be a mentor, a text or some music. So if you want to learn from, Wes, Django or Tom Morrell, it is all there, man!

Peace.

Here is a page of Liebman’s book to chew on.