How would you name this chord

[AROIOS]

Just came across an interesting chord Bill Charlap played inside a IVmaj9-V13sus progression.

How would you name the 4th chord below? I'm leaning towards #Cm6#5 and #Cdim7#5.

[PianoMan51]

A7b9/C#

[Jazz+]

C# dim 7

[AROIOS]

1 hour ago, PianoMan51 said:

A7b9/C#

Yup, this angle makes sense to me, in the same way as the m6#5 I mentioned.
 

#Cm6#5 can easily be seen as an alternative to #Cm7#5, which was discussed extensively in ReezeKeys' post from a while ago.

I've always considered #Cm7#5 equivalent of Aadd9/#C. So it's easy for me to view #Cm6#5 as A(7)b9/C as you mentioned.

[AROIOS]

23 minutes ago, Jazz+ said:

C# dim 7

This is closest to the mental sound I hear.

[CHarrell]

1 hour ago, Dave Ferris said:

Sage advice from Chick Corea 32 years ago.

 

Chick Corea once wrote he never spelt anything out in chord spellings beyond the 7.

 

Chord spellings are effective shorthand and can be a lot of fun but sometimes I wonder if it can damage our perception of music when we try to distill it so strongly into this little system. I remember as a high schooler finding the piano book for this and they actually were mad enough to use chord spellings on this.

 

 

 

The amount of extensions and parentheses made you think the editor got paid by the character! 😂

[CyberGene]

To add to what has already been said. Often what’s confusing in identifying diminished chords is the presence of additional notes, in this case the A. However, any note that is a whole step above any of the four diminished notes C#, E, G, Bb, hence Eb, F#, A, C, still counts towards a diminished chord. Which is also why the diminished scale, AKA whole-step-half-step is the one that sounds good over dim chords. 

[AROIOS]

4 hours ago, Dave Ferris said:

...

A last added thought on the voicing-- if you want to keep the low C# as the root for playing solo piano, at least place the E in the RH in the LH, a minor 10th away from the root, lose the E in the RH altogether so as to avoid doubling  and play Bb, C#,  F# (optional), A in the RH. That's a hipper sound to my ears.

I agree with everything you said, Dave. And I'm also a big fan of that hip bB-#C-E-#F-A sound. It works very well with D as root, in the context below for example.
 

[AROIOS]

2 hours ago, CHarrell said:

...

The amount of extensions and parentheses made you think the editor got paid by the character! 😂

Agreed, the function of these chords are so vague, not even $1,000 is gonna move me to put chord symbols on them. 😆

[AROIOS]

1 hour ago, CyberGene said:

To add to what has already been said. Often what’s confusing in identifying diminished chords is the presence of additional notes, in this case the A. However, any note that is a whole step above any of the four diminished notes C#, E, G, Bb, hence Eb, F#, A, C, still counts towards a diminished chord. Which is also why the diminished scale, AKA whole-step-half-step is the one that sounds good over dim chords. 

Agree with you 100% on this, CyberGene.

[Theo Verelst]

In the movement A- to CM7(/D) counting the indicated chord as a tension free A# Dim M7 (un-diminished 7, if instead the highest note were  G it would be full Bb or Db or E or G  diminished) is not breaking rules about which octave the added notes are in, or breaking out bass notes, or making bass notes part of the  chord meanjng.

 

T

[analogika]

Harmonically, I’d probably shoeho…eh interpret the progression as a derivative of IIm (Em7/C) V (A7b9/C#) I7sus (Cj7/D). 

[AUSSIEKEYS]

How would you name this chord?

 

I will name this chord "Bob"

[analogika]

3 minutes ago, AUSSIEKEYS said:

How would you name this chord?

 

I will name this chord "Bob"

Bob seems kinda dominant. 

[AWkeys]

If I read the staff right, I hear it as an F#7#9/C#, ie. an F#7#9  in second inversion

 

[PianoMan51]

And yet, it remains a classical Western European harmonic progression:

 

ii7-iii7-IV-II7(1st inversion) - V7sus (followed by V7-I)

 

Our problematic chord with C# in the bass is a Baroque secondary dominant. We’ve been doing this thing for 400 years. Why complicate your own understanding of the pattern?

 

Now, after the last chord Cmaj7/D, I like an F# major triad over that same D (with the top voice being an F#), then finally resolving to the G tonic.

 

 

[Shamanzarek]

Since the root is moving chromatically from C up to D I would consider this to be a C#-7 with an augmented or #5. If you look up this chord you should find an example with at least the same upper three notes.

[PianoMan51]

For 500 years the European music tradition has made a clear distinction between the lowest note versus the root. Somehow in the middle of the 20th century we musicians have lost this knowledge. 
 

For example, a C chord when played with an E in the bass still remains a C chord.

Not an E minor with a sharp 5th. 
 

An A7b9 remains an A dominant chord regardless of which chordal tone is in the bass. 

[AROIOS]

12 hours ago, analogika said:

Harmonically, I’d probably shoeho…eh interpret the progression as a derivative of IIm (Em7/C) V (A7b9/C#) I7sus (Cj7/D). 

Your suggestion got me into a bit of reharm fun. The result is the progression(s) below.

I love the Lydian sound in the first one, it's got that late 70's/early 80's hip vibe which I totally dig.
 

And the second one shouldn't have worked, coz the root #F is not part of the #A lydian scale. But boy do I love the resolution as a result of the II-V root movement and voice leading in the upper structure.

[AROIOS]

7 hours ago, AWkeys said:

If I read the staff right, I hear it as an F#7#9/C#, ie. an F#7#9  in second inversion

 

I love this angle. It opens doors to modulations. For example, the one below.

[AROIOS]

10 hours ago, PianoMan51 said:

...Why complicate your own understanding of the pattern?

 

Now, after the last chord Cmaj7/D, I like an F# major triad over that same D (with the top voice being an F#), then finally resolving to the G tonic.

Yeah, II subdominant chords were the usual suspects I first considered.
 

While A/C# or A7/C# would be a viable alternative for #Cdim7 in this context, I don't think the distinction between a dominant chord and diminished one is over-complication. They are two different sounds and could mean all the subtlety between a progression sounding classical versus jazzy, stylistically.
 

I love the #F/D idea you mentioned and extended that further chromatically (bar 1 &2 below). It totally reminds me of Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein". We can also add a parallel line of 5th, to make it sound even hipper (bar 3 & 4 below). Now try shoehorn this progression into the Baroque framework 😃

[AROIOS]

7 hours ago, Shamanzarek said:

Since the root is moving chromatically from C up to D I would consider this to be a C#-7 with an augmented or #5. If you look up this chord you should find an example with at least the same upper three notes.

Yes, although they don't cover the E or A# notes in Bill's voicing, #C7#5 and #Cm7#5 (if that's what you meant by "-") are both good alternatives as subdominants in this context.

[AROIOS]

7 hours ago, PianoMan51 said:

...For example, a C chord when played with an E in the bass still remains a C chord.

Not an E minor with a sharp 5th...

You quickly paint yourself into a corner with that level of rigidness though.
 

Try play "a Cmaj9 chord with an E in the bass" and see how long you can insist that it "remains a C chord" before giving up. 😃

[MathOfInsects]

8 hours ago, PianoMan51 said:

For 500 years the European music tradition has made a clear distinction between the lowest note versus the root. Somehow in the middle of the 20th century we musicians have lost this knowledge. 
 

For example, a C chord when played with an E in the bass still remains a C chord.

Not an E minor with a sharp 5th. 
 

An A7b9 remains an A dominant chord regardless of which chordal tone is in the bass. 

I feel this is stated too declaratively. There are plenty of times an upper structure might spell a different chord without that different chord defining the tonality. In your example, if the tonality is that of C, then sure, we can think of that chord functionally as the I, even if it is played in an inversion. But if the tonality is that of Em, raising that 5th (or adding the b6) would not change it to a C chord, any more than a C6 "changes" that C to an Am chord. Similarly, the upper structure of every minor-7 chord is a major triad. It very specifically requires reference to the lowest note to determine what to make of that structure. 

I do agree we've gone "name-crazy" when trying to call things by reference to their lowest note. But can't agree all E-G-C's are made the same. 

[Docbop]

or as Wes Montgomery would say....  it's a sound.    

[Stokely]

This subject sounds like me--a rock hack--while trying to learn "Peg".   Very few "normal" (from my perspective) chords in that tune.  "WTF do you call that" was often heard at my house as I tried to follow along with various youtube tutorials.  For example there's a chord where you play both the minor 3rd and major 3rd, which hurts my brain.   I had a ton of fun learning that song, and we are going to play it out soon hopefully, but man I need to get beyond "thinking mode" on it....we have the groove down great, it's just the damn chorus that screws us up.

[time4jazz]

1 hour ago, Stokely said:

 "WTF do you call that" was often heard at my house as I tried to follow along with various youtube tutorials.  For example there's a chord where you play both the minor 3rd and major 3rd, which hurts my brain.

Probably a 7#9 chord. 

[stoken6]

3 hours ago, time4jazz said:

Probably a 7#9 chord. 

My chart for Peg is littered with chord symbols like "Cmu". If it was up to me I would probably notate E7#9 as Ehx, in honour of Jimi. It makes sense to me.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[CyberGene]

Although they are technically separate chords (depending on the context), the 7#9 chord is sometimes interchangeable with what is a very common chord in jazz that is only labeled as “alt” chord. So, it’s actually pretty easy to just write it down as e.g. G7alt. In jazz, the meaning is that all extensions are altered, namely: b9, #9, #11, b13. Those are of course optional and only the #9 is assumed. Also, these alterations outline a melodic minor based on the b9 degree, e.g. a full G7alt chord contains all the notes of the Ab melodic minor scale. 

[Theo Verelst]

I think it's a good custom to take minimalism as the set rule for chord naming, so a Bdim M7 is exactly that, even if a A/Bb has tge same notes, here, the added lowered 9th should be in the octave above the main chord notes to get recognized as such. It is not just customary but also logical to distinguish between for instance a second and a nineth note, lowered or not.

 

Also, if prefer (since long) b10 over #9 because usually the harmonic function is that of a major or minor third, not a second.

 

T