what it the actual name for this chord?

appears to be a 7th chord. it is very much like an open C7 moved up the neck.
wish I had my guitar in front of me. wild stab E 7 or F7.
hey Noteboat!!!!!!

E7(#9) - first chord of Purple Haze (after the tritone notes of the very beginning), if I remember correctly. Also used a lot in jazz and blues.

The very cool thing about it, and part of what gives it the distinct sound is that when you look at the notes involved:

root - E
third - G#
fifth - B
seventh - D
#ninth - F##

You notice that raising F# up a half-step turns it into G. So you've essentially got the major and minor third together in the same chord. That's one reason you have to be pretty careful about how you voice this particular one.

You can also find B7(#9) - x2123x - as the turnaround chord in Spooky.

Hope this helps.

Peace

dh. wow. that sure helps me.

also try 022133, or 020133... more voicings of the same chord... E7#9.
If you use, eg... 353466..(G7#9) using 1st finger barre, it becomes movable. These are with the root on the 6th string.
ps... I hope I did the number thing right!
Cheers,

gerald

strangely enough: normally fussy jazz players seem to call any dominant 9th (dom7 with 9) that contains either # or b 5th and/or # or b 9th simply an altered 9th ... maybe because an altered ninth so strongly implies a the plain ole vanilla dom9th. (the definition of altered may go beyond changes to the 5th or 9th. David or Tom?)

thanks...i feel smarter now that i know what the chord i keep using is actually called :lol:

I just call it the Hendrix chord

(the definition of altered may go beyond changes to the 5th or 9th. David or Tom?)

Nope, altered chords never go beyond b5/#5/b9/#9. I think I explained why in a GN lesson a few years ago, but the reason is simple enough to restate...

You've got 7 scale tones. In chords, they're odd numbers, so they're 1-3-5-7-9-11-13.

You can never alter the 1 - if you do, you change the root, so the chord has a different name.
You don't "alter" the 3 - if you lower it, it's minor; if you raise it, it's "sus"
if you lower 7, you get a dominant chord (Cmaj7 becomes C7); if you raise it, it's the root
If you lower 11, you get 3 (since 11 = 4). And if you raise it, it's a b5.
if you lower 13, it's the same as #5. And if you raise it, it's a dominant 7th.

So that just leaves 5 and 9 for the tones that can be altered - we've got other ways of naming everything else.

(and for the curious, 11 and 13 when altered are always considered 5s - extended chords rarely include a 5th, so that spot is almost always open. In the odd situation where the altered tone AND the 5th are both included, there's probably a better way to do it: as an example, C-E-G-Bb-Ab (R-3-5-b7-b13) could also be spelled as Ab-C-E-G-Bb - so Abmaj9+ would be simpler)

Can someone tell me these 3 chord names? They are listed in a set of fingerpicking practice patterns I was going through, but not named.

(C Major) to...

-0- -0- -0-
-1- -1- -1-
-0- -0- -0-
-2- -2- -0-
-2- -0- -0-
-0- -0- -3-

It turned out to be a very nice sounding progression that is very easy to play and works with pretty much every pattern I have been practicing.

Also, can anyone recommend some other very simple (one-finger-moving-type) progressions like this to work with?

Most musicians would say that it's just a C chord with a descending walking bassline. Guitarists, who claim they don't need or like theory and yet want every musical nuance spelled out for them :wink: , would say:

C
C/B
C/A
Gsus4 (and that's assuming you're not hitting the open A string or the open high E (first) string)

This sort of descending walking bass line is used in a lot of songs. Ones you may know in a heartbeat are Mr. Bojangles (to be seen as an "Easy Songs for Beginners" lesson sometime this summer), Piano Man or Friend of the Devil (which is on our "Easy Songs for Beginners" lesson page).

You can do this sort of walk-down with any chord, major or minor, although some come more easily on the guitar than others. It serves as the foundation in the current "fingerstyle / chord-melody" arrangement of While My Guitar Gently Weeps that's on the home page. Just pick the chord and then move the root note down a half-step and then another whole step and then one more whole step.

You also can do this sort of thing in other places than in the bass notes. For instance, going from C (x32010) to Cmaj7 (x32000) to C7 (x32310) to F or Fmaj7 is wonderfully easy and sounds great.

Likewise, going with a similar progression in D:

D (xx0232)
Dmaj7 (xx0222)
D7 (xx0212)
D6 (xx0202) ( or Gmaj7/D if you prefer!)
Gm(maj7)/D (xx0332)
D (xx0232)

is a great exercise and sounds terrific, too.

There are lots of progressions like this - pick a chord and start changing just one note in it and see where you go.

Hope this helps.

Peace

David, you rock! Thanks for your very informative response.

And, what a very applicable question! It goes right along with your latest fantastic lesson!