Well, often times I've ran across a chord that's noted as A/B, or basically one note, a backslash, and the other note.
I was wondering, how are these chords constructed? I browsed through my chord encyclopedia, and can't even find an example of a chord like this, but I would like to know.
Slash chords add a bass note to the chord.
The chord itself is the same, in the example you gave you would play an A chord. The slash means instead of playing the Root of the chord as the lowest note you would play a B (in your example) as the lowest note.
One way to play A/B is:
X22220
XBEAC#E
I still have the A, C# and E of the original chord and I added a B for the bass note.
Ahh, all right. Thanks for the explanation. :)
I've wondered about these type of chords before as well. I get the second slash is the bass note.
But are these always diatonic? Will you see, for example a C/Ab chord?, that isn't within the correct triad? or will you always see them as inversions of the same chord?
You'll see either.
If the note after the slash is a chord tone, it's simply an indication of the inversion: C/E is a C major chord in first inversion.
If the note after the slash is a diatonic note, you could write it differently... C/A could be written as C6 (or Am7), but the author wants the extra note in the bass.
And yes, sometimes you'll see a non-diatonic note in the bass, like C/Ab.
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Thank you.
That clears a few things up for me.
