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March 16, 2025 9:17 AM

What would you call the 3rd chord?

E4?

posted by falsedmitri to Media & Arts (15 answers total)

Best answer: Try playing A7, that's what the sound is to my ear
posted by superelastic at 9:30 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Yeah, that G is the 7th for the A but I don't know the 2 Es are pulling me elsewhere.
posted by falsedmitri at 9:50 AM on March 16

Best answer: A7 seems pretty close to me - you've got an A in the root, two instances of its 5th (E) on the 1st and 4th strings, and its 7th on the open G (third) string.

A regular A7 is pretty close to this, just with the 2nd string fretted at the 3rd fret, which would give you the 3rd relative to A, but that's unvoiced in this one.
posted by LionIndex at 9:56 AM on March 16

Best answer: The lack of a key signature may be what’s making it confusing. Seems like D major to me, which implies a C# that is left out of the chord in question, which would be the V chord in that key and thus A major 7.
posted by slkinsey at 10:00 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: OH sorry, the key is indeed DM
posted by falsedmitri at 10:03 AM on March 16

There's no such thing as E4. If you mean Esus4, that would be E A B.

If you're in the key of D Major, then A7 is the logical/predictable choice, but without the 3rd, and without hearing the rest of the song or melody, we can't really say. There's no easy name for that chord. You could write it as "A7 (no third)" and specify that it needs to be played as written.

Playing an A min7 would be a more interesting progression, but it that's not what you want then you need to figure out what sound you want if f you're giving this to someone else to play. If you write A7, you're going to get a C#.
posted by jonathanhughes at 10:13 AM on March 16

There's no third in that note cluster, so it's arguably not a chord. If you're in D Major then it's functionally equivalent to A⁷ (with the third omitted). Leaving out the third is one of those things you'd do if you wanted to flip flop between related keys or have a deceptive cadence somewhere (e.g. Am⁷ could get you to C Major, G Major, or E minor instead of D), but in the absence of that intention just call it an A⁷.
posted by fedward at 10:13 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]

This is one of those things that can get people all worked up because Pop music theory isn't the same as Jazz music theory which isn't the same as Classical music theory or Musical Theater music theory, or whatever. But, they all use the same terms so it's very easy for people to think they're all coming from the same place when they're not. I tend to take a practical point of view that most people reading the music just need to know what I mean.

So, looking at it, it looks just like an A7 missing the third, especially since it goes straight to a D. The third on a V7 chord is the leading tone of the scale, so without it you're missing a big part of the function of the chord, plus without third chords tend to sound a little hollow. Then you're also doubling the 5th, which also weakens the identity of the chord, so it all makes for a slightly ambiguous sound, but guitar voicings are often a little bit weird.

If I was making a lead sheet and I wanted to make sure that the third was omitted by all the players I'd put A7(no 3) or A7(no 3rd). I've seen similar chords before in jazz charts and bluegrass tunes as well, if you know what an A7 chord is, it's very clear which notes you want. If I was making a lead sheet and that missing 3 was just a function of how things laid on the neck of the guitar and I wanted a more traditional sounding harmony in general I'd just put A7.

If I was analyzing a piece of music and it had those pitches... well I would maybe have to bust out pitch set class notation and call it something like set 035. Or I might just call it A7(no 3) depending on how the rest of the piece was looking and what sort of analysis I was doing.

(BTW there's no reason there couldn't be a chord called E4, but you'd have to write something to indicate what exactly you meant by that somewhere, but that's how terms come to be in the first place. Modern classical composers make stuff up like that all the time there can be multiple pages of performance notes on some scores)
posted by Gygesringtone at 10:45 AM on March 16 [5 favorites]

Yeah, I think there might be some room for analysis of authorial intent here and how accurate the transcription is - like is this a "fancy" enough artist that they'd have chords and fingerings like that? If I was lazy (note: I am lazy), I'd just barre the whole 2nd fret for the D/B chord and never move my ring finger from the 3rd fret on the 2nd string. So, I'd barre the 1-3 strings for the D and have my ring finger on C#; then just barre strings 1-5 and leave my ring finger there; then just play a regular old A7 that would only require me to pick up the barre and fret the 4th string (although just muting the C# with your ring finger wouldn't be too tough); then back to D barred on strings 1-3. Trying to do some finger gymnastics to where I'm fretting the C# with my pinky for the Dmaj so I can switch to fretting 3 different strings (but muting another!) is more effort than I want to do. But I am lazy.
posted by LionIndex at 11:13 AM on March 16

I agree that it's just an A7 but without the third. If it had the third, it would either be an A7 or an Am7, depending on which third (C or C#) is included.
posted by umbú at 2:20 PM on March 16 [1 favorite]

i would call that chord: Em/A
posted by The_Auditor at 5:40 PM on March 16 [1 favorite]

I agree with the_auditor. That’s an AC/DC Em/A. They use single finger chordings like that a lot
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:49 AM on March 17

The reason I personally don't like the Em/A notation [which I'd write as Em(add4) because I played keyboards before I played guitar] is what happens next. An E minor chord in the key of D Major would be expected to lead to the dominant (A), but in the example it's leading back to the tonic (D).

With a missing note in the voicing the actual chord is ambiguous. Is it an A⁷ missing a third? Is it an Em(add4) missing a fifth? Is it a C#dim⁶? Trick question! That last one's just an A⁷ and if you write it as a C#dim⁶ people reading your chart will be very mad at you.
posted by fedward at 9:11 AM on March 17

An E minor chord in the key of D Major would be expected to lead to the dominant (A), but in the example it's leading back to the tonic (D).

Expected to lead? I'm not sure what that means. I guess we listen to very different music so I just go where ever the song takes me. Making assumptions about basic chording seems dangerous. In most good music, the key signature is slapped on after the fact anyways.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:02 AM on March 18

“Expected to lead” is leaning on the diatonic western tradition such as is taught in music theory classes. A lot of it is a basic sort of “you can’t get there from here” logic that if you have a given chord there’s a small list of chords that would be likely to come next given (traditional) constraints on voice leading, which I should probably also explain: it’s a term of art for the intervals between notes for individual parts of the whole. Some rules about voice leading are heavily traditional; some are based on practical constraints involving the intervals the average singer can be expected to sing accurately. Writing good guitar parts also means being mindful of voice leading, which is less about whether a singer can hit a particular interval and more about how difficult it is to transition between fingerings.

My point was that chord notation is a hint to the performer, and if that performer has a grounding in theory they’ll be able not just to read the composition of the chord (which specific notes to play) but to have a pretty idea of what’s next, and choose their fingering accordingly. Given a couple different ways to express the chord/note cluster in question, someone writing a chart would do well to consider the mechanics of how it’s going to be played. It won’t make a difference to somebody who has just memorized fingerings for common chords, but it will make a difference to somebody who took theory and arranging classes.

Rock music is still more like what’s taught in music theory classes than anything else. Outside of music theory classes the only people I’ve ever heard talking about mixolydian scales (for example) were people who improvise guitar solos.
posted by fedward at 2:26 PM on March 18