PDA

View Full Version : Chordal Terminology



mandocrucian
Aug-21-2004, 7:37am
I think it's usually better to recycle existing terminology, even if archaic or obscure, rather than coining your own terms unless necessary. Perhaps there is terminology in the classical guitar realm to concisely describe some of the following?:

<span style='font-family:courier'># Am # # Dm # # # # #G
==========================
==0=======0==========2====
==10======0==========0====
==9======10========&lt;12&gt;===</span>

&lt;12&gt; = harmonic

Is there a term in classical guitar for chords which are not in a single position? i.e. mixing fretted notes up the neck with open strings. #And if harmonics are incorporated, is there there a term to cover that?

C-E-G : Close-voiced
C-G-e :open-voiced

C-E-Bb :

Is there any term to distinguish between a chord which has wide intervals between all of the pitches vs. a chord stack which is a mixture of wide/narrow intervals?

Thanks

Niles Hokkanen

Eugene
Aug-21-2004, 8:43am
Interesting notion. I'd be keen to hear if there were. I'm not aware of specific terminology to address such specialized chord voicings. They, of course, occur with some frequency on guitar, but I have always simply addressed them as A minor, D minor, or G and add description if I feel it necessary to clarify (e..g., "...with a harmonic on the tonic in the middle voices"...I guess that's kind of a first inversion). The specific harmonic case you offer is interesting. It strikes me as unusual to place the harmonic in a chord's middle voices; I just expect such color to be used to accent an upper voice.

Jim Garber
Aug-21-2004, 1:23pm
Niles,

Pardon my ignorance but how do you play that 3 note G chord with the harmonic. I was assuming that it was the harmonic on the 12th fret on the G string, open D string and the B on the second fret on the A string. Is that correct?

Jim

mandocrucian
Aug-21-2004, 4:22pm
Pardon my ignorance but how do you play that 3 note G chord with the harmonic. I was assuming that it was the harmonic on the 12th fret on the G string, open D string and the B on the second fret on the A string.

Hold the pick with the thumb and middle finger. The (RH) index finger touches the 12th fret node (artificial harmonic style) and then the pick alone strikes the D and A strings.

When you start mixing in the artificial harmonics in, you can get otherwise "impossible" close-voiced chords. Well, you can get some of those also with string splitting, but that has a different sonic flavor.

NH

Jim Garber
Aug-21-2004, 6:33pm
Interesting... I have played a few artificial harmonics but was assuming that since it was a 12th fret one i would play it with the left hand -- obviously virtually impossible.

Thanks, Niles!

Jim

MirekPatek
Aug-31-2004, 4:09pm
Hello Niles,

concerning your second question - my textbook of harmony theory distinguishes three terms: open harmony, close harmony and mixed harmony, where last term describes the situation you describe. But the textbook is in Czech language. Weak results of Google search for "mixed harmony" (in English) indicates that this term probably is not used frequently. I have found one material from Berklee college ( http://www.iajema.org/concerted_writing_jazz.pdf )which distinguishes just differend kinds of open voicings.

Quote from this file:
In basic concerted writing, the arranger usually begins in the brass section, “hanging”chord tones below a melody line using a variety of formulaic or “mechanical” voicings.These mechanical voicings are four-way close and the three variations of open voicings that are formed by dropping the second voice one octave (drop-2), dropping the third voice one octave (drop-3), or dropping both the second and fourth voices one octave (drop-2+4).

Regards
Mirek