A chord is set of notes played together in harmony. The name of a chord (eg. F#maj7) comes from its root note (F#) and chord type (maj7).
Chord names give a set notes meaning by identifying what sort of sound, or mood, they have when played together. As a piece of music progresses, the changing harmony can be described by a sequence of chords.
Chord Types
There are many different chord types, each with a different sound or mood. A chord type specifies a series of notes, each of them a particular interval from the root, or starting note. However it doesn't specify the root note or the names of the other notes.
The note intervals that make up a chord type are called degrees, and have names based on the position of notes in the Major scale. For example, the maj7 chord type is formed by the degrees 1-3-5-7.
Each combination of degrees forms a different chord type, and each makes a distinctly different sound. The wide variety of chord types is what makes the world of music so rich in harmonic possibilities.
For examples, see the standard chord types that are supplied with ChordWizard. These can be individually activated or added to with the Chord Types page in Library Options.
When you choose an root note (such as C, Eb, or F#) for the chord type, it becomes a chord.
Slash Chord Notation
Sometimes you will see a chord written in the form of Cmaj/G. This is known as slash chord notation. It indicates a Cmaj chord where the note G is the bass, or lowest pitched note in the chord, as opposed to the standard inversion of Cmaj, where the note C would be the bass note.
ChordWizard supports the use of slash chord notation throughout the workspace, if you tick the Use Slash Chord Notation option in the Indexing page of Library Options.
You may also sometimes see slash chord notation used where the note following the slash is not one of the notes in the chord, for example Amaj/G. This indicates that the chord contains the notes A-C#-E (from Amaj) as well as having G as the bass note.
In this case, the chord being made is actually A7 (which contains the notes A-C#-E-G), and should really be expressed as A7/G. Because of this ambiguity, ChordWizard does not use this type of slash chord notation, and requires that the slash note must exist within the chord.
See Also
