Topic by sjgcit

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  • sjgcit
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Topic: Chord naming confusion

Firstly please bare with me as my music theory is pretty minimal, so with that in mind...

I was playing around last night and my interest was drawn to a combination of three notes (using them in the left hand) which were E, Bb and D.

Pianoteq identifies these as a C9 chord (just those three notes played !) and while, yes, those notes are in a C9 surely that's not the correct name for that set of notes ?  Pianoteq does also identify the full C9 chord correctly, BTW.

On online chord identifier came up with E7b5sus (which is new territory for me).

So is Pianoteq wrong in naming it this way or am I simply misunderstanding the chord naming conventions (good odds on that last one) ?

Thanks in advance.

StephenG

Reply by dazric

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Re: Chord naming confusion

Pianoteq's not wrong, but some combinations of notes are ambiguous. So, E, Bb, D could indeed be C9 or E7b5sus, but it could also be just E7b5 or Bb b5 - and possibly some others I haven't thought of! - such as Em7b5 or even Gm6. I do think it's a bit odd that it names it as C9 without having the root note present.

Last edited by dazric (27-03-2023 17:42)

Reply by sjgcit

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Re: Chord naming confusion

dazric wrote:

I do think it's a bit odd that it names it as C9 without having the root note present.

Thank you.

Yes, the root chord's absence was the main source of my confusion, so something I'll know to watch out for in future.  Useful info.

StephenG

Reply by miiindbullets

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Re: Chord naming confusion

Rootless voicings are pretty common in jazz, especially when playing with a bassist. With a dominant 7, specifically, it's also common to also omit the 5th, and just play the color notes (3rd, 7th, 9th... throw in a 13th if you'd like). There are much better jazz players on this forum that could probably elaborate on this and/or correct me, but that's my best guess why it inferred a C9.

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Reply by dazric

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Re: Chord naming confusion

miiindbullets wrote:

Rootless voicings are pretty common in jazz, especially when playing with a bassist. With a dominant 7, specifically, it's also common to also omit the 5th, and just play the color notes (3rd, 7th, 9th... throw in a 13th if you'd like). There are much better jazz players on this forum that could probably elaborate on this and/or correct me, but that's my best guess why it inferred a C9.

Yes, that does make sense. It's interesting to see where they're coming from with chord interpretations. Most of the time I don't take any notice of the chord display TBH, but occasionally I see it come up with something that makes me think 'Huh? How did it get that?'