Am7 or is it called different?

Fingers Mcginty · 23-05-2013 02:45PM #1

If I play a normal A minor 7 but place my pinky on the high E 3rd fret is it called something different?

KeithTS · 23-05-2013 04:22PM

It can be viewed as Am7 or Cmaj6.
But generally I'd stick with Am7 as the A is the root.

This would be the case if you played the open E or the G by the way as the chord contains the same notes, just in general a m7 is also a maj6 chord

Fingers Mcginty · 23-05-2013 07:51PM

Getting into this theory stuff. Been playing for 30 years ...bout time I started eh?

Rigsby · 23-05-2013 08:49PM

Fingers Mcginty wrote: »

Getting into this theory stuff

Good on ya Fingers !!!

I found this to be very helpful. I'm sure you will too.

http://www.billygreen.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Music%20Theory%20-%20Basic,%20Intermediate,%20Advanced.pdf

Fingers Mcginty · 25-05-2013 08:58AM

nice one riggsby....ok another one for yiz. Low e to high e 575775....I know it's some variation on a a7sus4 but what does the finger on the b string change it to?...beautiful chord whatever it's called. Saw ould Eric Gales play it. Right off to try and book some of these one direction tickets

KeithTS · 27-05-2013 08:14AM

That's a tough one, it's actually Em11 without a 5th. If you take the F# out you're left with A7sus4 alright.

Fingers Mcginty · 27-05-2013 12:50PM

According to here it's A13sus4

http://chord-c.com/guitar-chord/A/thirteenth-suspended-fourth/

KeithTS · 27-05-2013 01:26PM

You could get an A13sus 4 *(kind of) out of it alright, its the G note that throws it out though.
the notes in the chord are:
A = 1st
E = 5th
G = b7th
D = 4th
F# = 6th (13th)

so the A,E,D will give you Asus4, adding in the F# gives A13sus4, however, the G note in there is a b7 meaning you'd get A13sus4b7....which is a nightmare.
you could also go with something along the lines of Gmaj7(9,13) no 3rd but I'd find it easier playing over it if I thought of it as Em11 personally.

either way its a nice interesting chord

Fingers Mcginty · 27-05-2013 02:59PM

KeithTS wrote: »

You could get an A13sus 4 *(kind of) out of it alright, its the G note that throws it out though.
the notes in the chord are:
A = 1st
E = 5th
G = b7th
D = 4th
F# = 6th (13th)

so the A,E,D will give you Asus4, adding in the F# gives A13sus4, however, the G note in there is a b7 meaning you'd get A13sus4b7....which is a nightmare.
you could also go with something along the lines of Gmaj7(9,13) no 3rd but I'd find it easier playing over it if I thought of it as Em11 personally.

either way its a nice interesting chord

Chewers keith.you know you're stuff.just trying too get my head around all this theory business.

KeithTS · 28-05-2013 08:12AM

If you're just starting out with this stuff I'd suggest a couple of things.

1 - Write out all the notes played in the chord

2 - Write out the notes of the major scale of each of those notes. You'll more than likely always assume you're playing in the same scale as the lowest note in the chord but this is not always the case. As in the chord above, you could get A13sus4(b7) but there's simpler alternatives.

3 - Go through each note and match it to the relevant position in each scale, again like I did in my post where I listed A = 1st, E = 5th and so on. Do this is for each of the scales too. This will give you a good feel for the relationship between different chords or naming alternatives.

A good exercise is to write out alternatives for other chords you already know, for instance, F#m7 is also A6. there's no point in doing this for triads however so come up with some fancy chords to try it out on.

Am7 or is it called different?

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