Mu chord

A mu major chord or mu chord (signified by μ) is a distinctive voicing of an add 2 or "add 9" chord. It is formed by adding a 2nd to a major triad. The mu major chord differs from a sus2 chord as a sus2 chord does not contain a 3rd. The voicing came to be associated with jazz-rock band Steely Dan.

"Inversions of the µ major may be formed in the usual manner with one caveat: the voicing of the second and third scale tones, which is the essence of the chord's appeal, should always occur as a whole tone dissonance." Part of the chord's peculiarity is the presence of two stacked fourths in the upper register, between the second and the fifth, and the fifth and the root. This quartal harmony are more obvious when the chord is voiced with the 3rd in the bass. The chord can also be voiced with the 9th (2nd) in the bass, although such voicings are generally known as slash chords. It is suggested that the chord was conceived on or for use on keyboards.

Mu chords, or portions thereof, may be used in chord substitution to replace simple major triads. For example an Am7 chord can be thought of as a C major triad (CEG) with an A in the bass. A C mu major chord can be voiced as a DEG triad with a C in the bass. Taking the upper portion (DEG) of the C mu chord and substituting this in place of the C triad in the original Am7 chord would give an A7sus4 chord: DEG with A in the bass.

Chord

Chord may refer to:

Chord (geometry)

A chord of a circle is a straight line segment whose endpoints both lie on the circle. A secant line, or just secant, is the infinite line extension of a chord. More generally, a chord is a line segment joining two points on any curve, for instance an ellipse. A chord that passes through a circle's center point is the circle's diameter.

Chords of a circle

Among properties of chords of a circle are the following:

The area that a circular chord "cuts off" is called a circular segment.

Chord is from the Latin chorda meaning bowstring.

Chords of an ellipse

The midpoints of a set of parallel chords of an ellipse are collinear.

Chords in trigonometry

Chords were used extensively in the early development of trigonometry. The first known trigonometric table, compiled by Hipparchus, tabulated the value of the chord function for every 7.5 degrees. In the second century AD, Ptolemy of Alexandria compiled a more extensive table of chords in his book on astronomy, giving the value of the chord for angles ranging from 1/2 degree to 180 degrees by increments of half a degree. The circle was of diameter 120, and the chord lengths are accurate to two base-60 digits after the integer part.

Chord (music)

A chord, in music, is any harmonic set of three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords (these involve the notes of the chord played one after the other, rather than at the same time) may, for many practical and theoretical purposes, constitute chords. Chords and sequences of chords are frequently used in modern Western, West African and Oceanian music, whereas they are absent from the music of many other parts of the world.

In tonal Western classical music, the most frequently encountered chords are triads, so called because they consist of three distinct notes: the root note, a third above the root and a fifth interval above the root. Further notes may be added to give tetrads such as seventh chords (the most commonly encountered example being the dominant seventh chord) and added tone chords, as well as extended chords and tone clusters. Triads commonly found in the Western classical tradition are major and minor chords, with augmented and diminished chords appearing less often. The descriptions major, minor, augmented, and diminished are referred to collectively as chordal quality. Chords are also commonly classified by their root note—for instance, a C major triad consists of the pitch classes C, E, and G. A chord retains its identity if the notes are stacked in a different way vertically; however, if a chord has a note other than the root note as the lowest note, the chord is said to be in an inversion (this is also called an "inverted chord").