ChordWizard® Music Theory 3.0 is the downloadable version of the How Music Works tutorials. It is installed on your computer for easy reference, and includes all the sounds, text searching, bookmarking, and many printing options.

(3.15) Other Chord Types

You can make new chord names from existing ones by finding the closest standard chord type and altering its name to show which degrees are different.

For example, what should we call the chord type which has the formula shown below?

We have not yet been introduced to a chord type with this formula, but there is one similar. The m11 (minor eleventh) chord is the same, except it has a natural fifth instead of the sharp fifth of this one.

Knowing this, we can create a new name for this chord type - m11#5 (minor eleventh sharp fifth), that would be both perfectly acceptable, and readily understood by other musicians.

Most ChordWizard products allow you to activate or deactivate any of the supplied standard chord types. Only the active chord types are displayed and used.

This means that you can customise these products for the chord types you are interested in. You can also extend them by adding your own custom chord types which are then seamlessly integrated into all operations.