The Infamous "/" chords

A "slash" chord has the note after the slash in teh base. So if you know your notes on the 6th adn 5th strings, then you can know where you're chord has to be in general terms.

The rest of the chord form will be determined by what voicing you need.

Thanks for the response.

Sadly, it didn't help.

I'm looking at one right here that goes

(Chord progression.)

E ------- B/E -------- A2 (the 2 should be small and upper right of A) ------- E --------B/E ------- A2

Is the B/E a B chord? Is the A2 an A chord? If so, what is that alteration to the chord? If not, then how do you play those chords? Specifically, I'd like to understand how to read the chords and at least, here, see the fret positions of the needed fingers.

Again, thank you for reading.

B/E is a B chord, but it has E as the bass note (it would then be a Badd11 chord, really)

If you have B: x24442

and you add the open E string: 024442

you have one possible voicing of a B/E.

A2 is a different animal. '2' chords aren't really chords - they're major second intervals. In this case, you play the root (A), plus the 2nd note in the major scale of the root note (in this case, B). You don't play any other notes, but you can play those two as many times as you'd like... you might do somthing like:

x07x07 - that's A-A-B-B. There are dozens of other ways to play 'A2'

Thank you, NoteBoat. I hate to say what through me from King's post but it was the spelling of base. :oops:

I haven't even begun to understand voicing yet so that was/is still over the top for me but this well help in understanding what I'm reading.

Thanks, both of you, for stretching my brain cells to another level. :D

B/E is a B chord, but it has E as the bass note (it would then be a Badd11 chord, really)

If you have B: x24442

and you add the open E string: 024442

you have one possible voicing of a B/E.

A2 is a different animal. '2' chords aren't really chords - they're major second intervals. In this case, you play the root (A), plus the 2nd note in the major scale of the root note (in this case, B). You don't play any other notes, but you can play those two as many times as you'd like... you might do somthing like:

x07x07 - that's A-A-B-B. There are dozens of other ways to play 'A2'

Just curious - this leads us back to the "sus2" dilemma - I've pretty much always seen A2 voiced with three notes, A-B-E, with this being the most common for A2:

x02200

There's not a lot of consensus on what an 'A2' chord is, exactly. Since it's not a 'standard' chord, it's not in any chord dictionaries I have here... and searching the web, I find all of these labeled 'A2':

- A major second interval (A-B)
- the E suspended chord (A-B-E)
- A add 9 (A-B-C#-E)

I consider chords with a number (other than 6, 7, 9, 11, or 13) to be power chords, because the whole number thing started with power chords as 'A5'... and then continued to its inversion as 'A4' (same as E5, really).

It's all part of the standard guitarist confusion that a fingering must equal a chord name.

Please note that although playing slash chords like E/B is perfectly possible on a guitar, in 90% or more of the cases wher you see them in guitar tab of pop songs, the bass note (B) is played by the bass player and the rest of the chord (E major) by the guitarist. A plain E major is usually a perfectly acceptable substitute, but may miss the nuance of a moving bassline like:

E
E/G#
E/A
E/B

Hmm...I always thought the root note came before the slash, while the chord came after? For instance, F/Cm. Guess I was incorrect...or is it done both ways? I wouldn't think so...

The chord comes first.

If you see something like F/Cm it might be a polychord - where two full chords are played at the same time. Then what the listener really hears is:

F (F-A-C) + Cm (C-Eb-G) = F9 (F-A-C-Eb-G)

Hmm, that makes sense, but why not just write it as an F9?

Is that actually an F9? I didn't think the chourd would sound so...unfulfilled. It needs resolution...perhaps because the A C Eb within is diminished? It wants to resolve to B flat major. Is that actually an F9? Like, I can hear it needing to resolve, but I have no way of arguing that it's not an F9, because I really don't know what it would be otherwise. I just didn't think normal 9ths sounded like that.

Edit: Hey, Noteboat, you seem to know this stuff...F A C Eb G is an F9. F A C E G is also an F9. How would you distinguish between the two in text? Fm9? F9? Sorry, I'm just curious...I want to learn.

Polychords aren't used very often. If they're written in to a composition, it's usually either because it's bitonal (the two instruments are following progressions in different keys), or to make an impossible voicing playable - for instance, a fully voiced 13th chord, which has seven notes in it... you've only got 6 strings on one guitar.

Ninth chords are dominant (as are 7ths, 11ths, and 13ths), so they want to resolve - and you're dead on that the reason is the internal diminished chord. The logical resolution is down a perfect fifth to a Bb major (or a Bb minor).

Chords that have numbers, like F7 or G9, imply a lowered seventh. So F9 = F-A-C-Eb-G. If you want the seventh to be played natural (F-A-C-E-G), you'd write Fmaj9. The only exceptions are those with a number less than nine, like F5 (a power chord), F6, or F6/9 - slashes here mean you play the first chord and add the note(s) after the slash.

Using 'm' in a chord name means you've lowered the third, so Fm9 has 1-b3-5-b7-9... F-Ab-C-Eb-G. If you want the third lowered, but the seventh natural, you write Fm/maj9

It's all part of the standard guitarist confusion that a fingering must equal a chord name.

Wow, that sure sums it up.