Chord/chord?

[Jeff]

E/D, E/A, D/A are all examples of what I'm talking about. I was at a practice today for a chuch choir (with my electric Ibanez of course), and came across a bunch of these, and had no idea what they mean.

Do you play the notes they have in common?

Or do you just pick one chord and hope everyone else picks the same?

[nvn]

It's about specifying the bass note over which the chord is played. For instance, D/A would mean a D major chord sounding over the note A. Hence, the result of E/D is an E7 with the bass playing the seventh (it could be written E7/D as well, though E/D is a simpler approach, perhaps more legible in some cases).

The E/A is a bit more interesting, since the note A is not a component of the E major chord. If we were to interpret this harmonically, it might be some sort of Amaj9 (the context would make it clear whether it's a major or a minor chord, since there's no third if you consider it an A or Am based chord). Maybe it could be written as Amaj9(no 3rd) or something like that...which brings us to the practical part of it all. It's just simpler to write it as E/A - even if it isn't an E chord, the sounding result will be the same. I wouldn't consider it theoretically correct though. :P

[Jeff]

Well, I just made those up, so I see what your saying about E/A.

I have a lot more questions to ask, but I have to go up there again to practice, so I'll see ya around.

[BrianH]

They are called Slash chords... here is simply what you do.

Real example...

C/G this means C major chord but a G in the bass. Where does the G come from.. easy, Low E string 3rd fret is a G, use your pinky to play the G.

Alternatively you can ignore the slash note if you don't know the chord well enough and you have to play it on the spot.

[Jeff]

Yea, the expect me to play it ALL on the spot...no kidding.

And playing 2 hours of barre chords gets really really tiring, especially since my guitar has such a high action. But I would much rather prefer playing leads on high action versus low action. Strange, isn't it?

One more thing, how does the chord change with a sus2 and sus4?

[nvn]

I'm not sure I understand your question, "how does the chord change with a sus2 and sus4", but I'll try to say something that might be pretended to be an answer. For example, a Csus2 chord would be a C major chord, but with the third substituted for the second (that is, E instead of D). The suspension in this chord is solved (or how to put it in english) by letting the second rise to the third. Similarly, in a Csus4 chord, the third is substituted for the fourth (that'd be F), which releases the tension by falling to the third.

In baroque music (for instance) you'll see sus chords quite often, particularly in the ending cadenzas; it's not unusual to use both sus2 and sus4 in a way where the sus4 comes first, the fourth falls to the second, which in turn ends the piece by making the step to the third. This combined usage further adds to the tension created by a sus chord, and it's easy to make a smooth transition from for example a dominant seventh chord to a tonic sus chord (again, I hope my english is sufficient). This is because the second and the fourth of the tonic are also the fifth and the seventh of the dominant, respectively. Hence, after a dominant seventh chord, you may let its fifth or its seventh remain sounding as you change into the tonic (without playing the third), and voila...you have a sus chord.

Hope I wasn't too confusing.