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 meaning to a set of notes 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 name of the root note or 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.
In Songtrix, you can view and manage the available chord types in the Workspace Options.
Chords Track
Songtrix has a complete understanding of chords, and provides the Chords track where you can enter the chords of your song.
The Chords track, together with the Rhythm track, give you a versatile and convenient mechanism for creating a diverse array of accompaniment effects, from strumming patterns to jazz piano vamps and techno rhythms.
The selection of the bass pitch and the interval spread of the chord tones is automatically guided by your settings in the Chords track setup. However you can override this for any chord to get a custom inversion.
Slash Chords
Sometimes you will see a chord written in the form of Cmaj/G, which is known as slash chord notation. It indicates a Cmaj chord where the note G is specifically indicated as the bass note in the chord, instead leaving the choice ofinversion up to the player.
Songtrix uses slash chord notation in the Chords track to indicate where you have adjusted the bass pitch of the automatic chord inversion.
In this case the absolute pitch is shown (eg. A4) instead of just the note (eg. A). If you also select the other pitches, the full inversion is shown after the chord name.
