Chord Synonyms

The Chord Synonyms tool is a popup window, opened by:

Menu: Tools-Chord Synonyms

It reveals, and allows you to explore the synonym chord types among those which you have activated in the Chord Types Options.

Synonym Chords occur where two different chords contain the same set of notes, in a different order or inversion.

For a full discussion of these see Synonym Chords in the Tutorials.

The Original and Synonym chord lists are colored blue as with other areas in the ChordWizard workspace. You can change these colors with the Display Options.

Controls

Original Chord Type

This list contains all of the activated chord types which have synonyms.

You begin your exploration of chord synonyms by selecting one of these.

Synonym Chord Type

This list contains all of the chord types which can produce a synonym for the chord type selected in the Original Chord Type list.

By default, the first item in the list is selected, but can you can select a different one instead.

Original Chord

Synonym Chord

This area is for constructing a chord based on the Original Chord Type you selected and viewing the properties of the resulting synonym chord.

You do this by selecting a root note for the original chord from the dropdown list.

The first item in the root note dropdown list (and the default selection) is the roman numeral (I). This notation is often used in music to represent the degrees of the Major scale.

In this case, it allows you to see the difference in interval between the Original Chord and the Synonym Chord before you select an actual root note.

Let's take an example. We know that Am7 and C6 are synonym chords because they both have the notes A C E G.

By selecting m7 as the Original Chord Type and 6 as the Synonym Chord Type, we are presented in this area with an original chord of (I) m7 and a synonym chord of (bIII) 6.

This tells us that any chords built from the m7 chord type have a synonym chord whose root note is the b3 degree of the Major scale starting on the original chord root note.

The corresponding degrees of the original chord and the synonym chord are shown in the grid between them, so the 1 b3 5 and b7 degrees of the m7 chord type correspond to the 6 1 3 and 5 degrees of the 6 chord type, regardless of the root note.

Then if we select an actual root note of A, things become clearer. We find that the synonym chord of Am7 is C6, which

confirms the (I)->(bIII) interval shown above, since C is the b3 degree of the A Major scale.

Selecting an actual root note in this way also reveals the actual notes made by each of the corresponding degrees - in this case, A C E G, as we already expect.

Selecting a different root note will produce a different synonym chord and a different set of component notes.

Set Filter to Chord

There are two of these, one each for the Original Chord and the Synonym Chord. They send the selected chord to the filter, helping you to find suitable chordshapes for playing it when you return to the workspace.

These buttons are only enabled if you have an actual root note selected for the original chord.

Play Chord

There are two of these, one each for the Original Chord and the Synonym Chord. They play the sound of their respective chords, allowing you to compare the different note orders.

Closes the Chord Synonyms window and returns to the workspace.

Help

Opens ChordWizard Help at this topic.