Chord charts

wim

Ah, I understand the confusion now! The OP is thinking of physical frets , those metal lines on the fingerboard - whereas many guitar players might more naturally think of the "fret" not as literally the fret, but the position where you put your finger.

So the number 7 here, indicating the 7th position, is "between" frets 6 and 7 (counting from 0th fret = the nut). It would be less confusing for them if that number 7 was written a little bit lower down on the diagram (but more confusing for many other people, perhaps...

Agree with denis this is 1st inversion so the root is still A, the bass note is C here - root just a poor choice of words on my part.

Buco

Ahhh I see, thanks Wim.

AndrewUlle

I think it's been so long since I needed chord charts (for playing 60's rock, all I needed was the 5 or 6 basic chords I learned 30+ years ago), I forgot how to read them. All of these new-to-me chords (m6, dim, 6/9 etc) just made me lose my bearings, I think. Sorry for causing all the confusion. I'll catch on soon enough. My theory is not that strong to fully understand how one chord shape can be two different chords depending upon the context, for example Bdim and E7 are fingered exactly the same (same shape, same fret) in two different songs in Robin Nolan's Gypsy Gig Book.

wim

Andrew Ulle wrote: »

for example Bdim and E7 are fingered exactly the same (same shape, same fret) in two different songs in Robin Nolan's Gypsy Gig Book.

it's about the notes in the chords .. think about how you spell these chords. below is written the notes and then the scale degrees in parentheses

Bdim :  B D F Ab   (1, ♭3, ♭5, ♭♭7)
E7   :  B D E Ab   (5, ♭7,   1,   3)

read 1 b3 b5 bb7 like : root, minor third, flat 5th, diminished 7th (*)

now a common thing in jazz is to skip the root note in your chords (because the bass player can play it, leaving you space to play the more 'colourful' notes). so you might spell E7 just like B D Ab (5, ♭7, 3).

another common trick is to extend dominant chords with a 9th, sharp 9ths natural 9ths and flat 9ths all work!! flat 9 is especially common in gypsy jazz especially on minor tunes.

now you can use both these tricks, if you make a "tall" E7 chord by colouring it with a ♭9 (F) - and you drop the root E - you get B D F Ab, i.e. the exact same notes in Bdim.

that's how they can be the same fingering for "different" chords!

so how does the guy writing the chart know to write Bdim or E7 if they sound the same?? well the thing is ... 9 times out of 10 if someone writes a diminished chord on a chart they are being lazy or just plain wrong, it's almost always a substitution for some other chord. the only django tune I can think of from the top of my head that should actually have a diminished chord in the chart is mabel, although I'm sure there are some others. often diminished chords are used just as "passing" chords to get from one to the other in a fancy way, but you shouldn't usually write these passing chords into a chart it is unnecessary detail. likewise you shouldn't write E7b9 into a chart , just E7 is ok leave the details up to the interpretation of the player.

hope this helps !



_{*note: we don't call the Ab a 6th here, root B chords are tricky because B scale has 5 sharps (B, C♯, D♯, E, F♯, G♯, and A♯) so the dim7th is a flatted-flatted-A#, if that makes sense. in the context of, say, a B69 chord you would call the same damn note a G# !}

AndrewUlle

Thanks, Wim - it kinda makes sense for my simple mind. I am playing more chords in one Gypsy Jazz song than I used to play in an evening's worth of rock and roll songs...

dennis

Wim Glenn wrote: »

so how does the guy writing the chart know to write Bdim or E7 if they sound the same?? well the thing is ... 9 times out of 10 if someone writes a diminished chord on a chart they are being lazy or just plain wrong, it's almost always a substitution for some other chord.

It's definitely very tricky and ambiguous. When I write out charts myself , I struggle with the decision:

"do i write the theoretically correct chord or the one that's easiest to read?"

And the reason one is easier to read is because many people make the same mistakes so it's become very common. The same way we don't play Gypsy guitars but Italian guitars but no one will ever say that ;-)

As far as real diminished chords are concerned, G/B Bbdim7 Am7 D7, the Bbdim7 here is a real diminished chord. It is indeed a passing chord, but it does not substitute for a dominant chord. In certain classical theory circles, they call that a common tone diminished chord:

http://www2.siba.fi/muste1/index.php?id=90&la=en

Jazzaferri

Hmmmm.....what happened to my post.....maybe Michael deleted it.....probably a good thing if he did.....I was upset by being called lazy and wrong for my use of diminished chords in my charts. Gad, Nuages in particular was full of em....wring close harmony with all those chromatic lines.........what else to do?

Craig Denney

I always thought of it as the beginning of that shape (and chord box) starts at the 7th fret. So wherever the first fretted note is would be the 7th fret.

AndrewUlle

I think what caused my initial confusion was because I associate chords with their root notes, either on the 6th to 5th string depending on the chord shape bring type 1 or type 2, so I expect to see any A chord (or D type 2) to be fretted at the 5th fret, 7th fret for B or E, and so on. So seeing this Am/C chord marked as 7th fret created some cognitive dissonance for me...

Jazzaferri

Slash chords can be confusing at first.