Comment by klodolph | Hacker News Reader

Comment by klodolph | Hacker News Reader

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A couple notes

> While it's almost always I, IV, V, and vi, we have both II/ii and III/iii, differing on whether the third is major or minor.

This might be a bit confusing as written, because the slash "/" is normally used in roman numerals to indicate secondary chords. For example, the II chord may be written as V/V. (V/V is always II, but not the other way around... the "/" notation indicates that the chord is functioning as a secondary chord, which is something you figure out from context.)

The terminology "open chords" is also a bit unusual. The term "open chords" usually refers to chords that use open strings (strings that are not fingered). Chords without a third are often called "power chords". You can do your entire song with power chords if you're playing rock music.

I'd also add that what chords you get as the three/four chords you need depends so heavily on genre. If you were playing blues, you might pick I7, IV7, and V7 for your first three, and then maybe bVII7 as the fourth. If you were playing jazz, you might pick something like I69, ii9, IVmaj7, V7.

In general, the conflation of "chords" and "harmony" can be just little sticky, because one implies something the instrument is doing, and the other what the composer/band/piece does. An instrument might be making lots of chord changes, but that doesn't necessarily mean there is any overall harmonic motion happening.

Sure in rock'n'roll the guitar player isn't hitting the third a lot, but the singer almost certainly is!

Also, if you are playing modern jazz, you are not really doing functional harmony like this analysis assumes except at a very macro level. Chord changes there are about color more often, only punctuating with a true harmonic change. This can be true even if they are moving from, say, an I9 to IV9. That seems like a "change", but its really just elaborating on the I.

I seem to remember "open chords" in my brief counterpoint studies, but can't find anything to back that up now. But in counterpoint you could talk about the openness of certain "harmonies" in terms of their compatibility to any number of changes. Something with a lot of doubled roots and fifths are less open to changing, if you are following the "rules".

I'm not going deep into Jazz, but if I'm playing a song with something like I vi ii V, then I'm going to likely color those chords with the 7th (at the minimum) and likely additional extensions.

I picked something like I69 not because it has function different from I, but because a 6/9 chord is a common choice for a Jazz musician to play as a I chord. Or, at least, it's one of my first picks. And if you're playing I9 -> IV9, my question is whether the I IV is just comping on I or whether it's harmonic movement.

And I will say that while there is no requirement to use functional harmony in Jazz, there is a massive repertoire of Jazz that uses functional harmony, or at least uses harmony where you can get insight by analyzing it functionally. For example, I might analyze something as "bV7/V I" in a jazz song and that is both very functional and very jazzy, and in a classical piece I might see "N6 V7 I" and while N6 and bV7/V are similar chords, using the chord with dominant function is, stylistically, a jazz idiom.

> In general, the conflation of "chords" and "harmony" can be just little sticky, because one implies something the instrument is doing, and the other what the composer/band does.

Maybe not directly related or as confusing, but also worth noting here I think is that you can play three notes sequentially and still call it a chord. It would be a "broken chord". And you can play just two notes simultaneously as a "harmonic interval".

> This might be a bit confusing as written, because the slash "/" is normally used in roman numerals to indicate secondary chords.

Sorry, that's not something I'd seen. Edited the post to switch to "or".

> The terminology "open chords" is also a bit unusual. The term "open chords" usually refers to chords that use open strings (strings that are not fingered).

Looking some, you're totally right. I'm confused where I picked up the idea that these were called "open"? I think I've seen them written like "G<sub>open</sub>" to indicate that you don't play a 3rd? Calling them "power chords" in a non-rock context sounds off to me, though. Edited the post to call them chords without thirds.

> Calling them "power chords" in a non-rock context sounds off to me, though

Even jazz musicians call them powerchords

Every guitar player calls them powerchords. I've never heard of another term. Unless OP is referring to double stops. But, those are more of an embellishment, and usually never played on the low E or A string.

Jazz, rock, and pop guitarists and keyboardists all call 5 chords power chords.

Most people would also understand that there's no 3rd if you call it a G5.

I'd call that an "open 5th". That might come from a classical pov.

That makes sense! I'd probably turned "open fifth" into "open chord"

power chords ... call them chords without thirds.

Not a guitarist, but I always assumed "power chord" referred to lots of doubling up over octaves, not the absence of a third.

It almost always refers to a perfect fifth, optionally with the octave on top. It's a very easy thing to play with two or three fingers, either on guitar or keyboard.

> Calling them "power chords" in a non-rock context sounds off to me, though.

Lots of powerchords in pop too. "powerchord", to me at least, implies that there is a distortion effect somewhere in the signal chain. Powerchords on their own sounds really weak.

When playing mandolin I rarely play thirds (https://www.jefftk.com/p/mandolin-teaching-videos), but I'm also playing traditional music, acoustic, where "power chords" sounds strange?

Outside of rock or guitar world, it is very unusual to hear them be called "power chords". That lingo is best avoided.

Co-incidentally the first graph looks like a pair of 'hand-horns'.

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