There are many different voicings of chords that have the same name.If looking to play all possible chords on the guitar, be aware that: (This aspect might be slightly tangential to your question). But human players don't play notes at exactly the same time, even if they're notated together, and it might not always be possible to distinguish a 'chord' from a fast melodic run or arpeggio. We might think that in a 'chord', the notes have to be played at the same time. A chord is three notes? What do you call just two notes?Įven if we assume that most people agree that a chord is at least two notes, we might still find disagreement on whether 2 notes precisely an octave apart constituted a 'chord'. That's as true of music theory terminology as many other fields (some would say more so!), and 'chord' is one of those words that's not very well-defined. Unfortunately, many words in the English language aren't really defined very rigorously. But someone who only writes pop songs might be more likely to answer, "no they're not chords." If you're looking for a functional definition, it's fine to limit the definition to the examples of chords you actually encounter/want to study. I would think folks who write atonal music would say "yes" to both questions. Contextĭo you agree that the combination of notes C-C#-D form a chord? What about the notes C-C#? The answers to these questions depend on your perspective and on the genre of music you're working in. By contrast, a chord in general may not contain this information. (some would say that a definite chord is the same as a common chord)Ī definite chord contains enough information to identify whether the chord is major, minor, suspended, etc. There are at last two major ways the term "chord" could be used:Ĭhord in general: any two notes that appear to sound simultaneouslyĪ definite chord: any three notes appearing to sound simultaneously, which have a defined chord quality Perhaps it would be more useful to choose a specific genre and narrow in on the concept of a chord within that genre. If you want to use the definition as a road map-a guide-for creating new chords, you'll be frustrated by a broad definition. The broadest definition that exists of a chord is: "any two notes that appear to sound simultaneously." As you read this definition, you can probably tell that, the broader a definition becomes, the less useful it becomes for your purposes.
There is only way to create a single definition of the word "chord" that adequately captures every empirical instantiation of a chord: to encompass them all, we must define the word "chord" incredibly broadly. A Slight IssueĬhords exist in a stunning variety. I will hopefully add something new by (1) identifying an issue with the question, and (2) distinguishing two types of chords, and (3) explain why context matters. Or in the end it turns out that the list of chords comes rather from history/tradition and cannot be exactly described by a strict mathematical rule (like it is possible for instance with semitones in octave which can be mathematically described and mapped to frequencies of the sounds ? ) So - is there any rule which would allow me to form any possible chord (not just some subset of them) on guitar? The other definition I read that a chord is a harmonic composition of at least 3 pitches which belong to the same scale, but it would mean that any 3 pitches from the for instance Chromatic Scale form a chord, which I guess is not true?
I know that most of chords contain at least 3 pitches, a Root, third and fifth, but as far as I understood this is not essential for every chord. What do all chords have in common, and is there a set of rules allowing to say that these 2.N pitches are for sure a chord? I tried to look for something clear and unambiguous but I can't find it, or I'm missing something simple.