How do guitar chords get their names?

how do guitar chords get their name

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Hello Barbara. This is my first time commenting. I played guitar for many years growing up, but I abandoned it in the past several years and am here to return to playing by reviewing all the fundamentals systematically. My understanding of why guitar chords are named the way they are is this: there are 7 main notes in music, which can each be called in two different ways depending on the country you are in or the “music language” that your music school uses. The notes can be called either: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, or they can be called: C, D, E, F, G, A, B. Guitar chords are referred to by the names of their “corresponding notes” in this second way of naming notes (although they can also be named based on the first way of naming notes). Basically each guitar chord corresponds to a musical note, and gets its name from it. I don’t know the deeper musical theory reasons why there are precisely 7 main notes or exactly how each note is related to each corresponding chord. I hope that makes sense, and anyone please correct me if I’m wrong or provide further explanation if you can. If anyone read this thank you for your patience with my long winded comment, and have a nice day :smile:

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@barbaramariottini To avoid getting into long boring theory the simplest answer is
Chords get their names from the interval they are made up from.
Long answer
Major chords contain the Root(1) the 3rd and the 5th intervals. All this mean is in the Key of C the notes are C D E F G A B if you give each note a number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 the chord C Major(C) gets it name from the Root note C and the 3rd interval, the Major 3rd using the number system. C E G
The chord C minor (Cm) use a flatten or minor 3rd Eb giving it a minor designation.
This work for every Major and Minor chord but you need to use the parent scale.
D major and D minor come from the D Major scale.
Once you get into 7, Maj7, m7, 11, 13 etc the theory get a little more complicated but follows the same formula using intervals of the Parent Major scale.

Hi Rick,
If she was still waiting after 2 and a half years for an answer, you don’t have to worry about that this could be being boring for her because…well I hope that this speaks for itself. :grin:

Greetings

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Why did a post that’s 2 years old show up as a new post this morning. I smell a rat. I bet @brianlarsen had something to do with it. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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:joy:
And indeed very weird and not a thing that normally would have escaped from your atentiont, so I was already wondering how and what but probably …BRIANNNNN !!! :angry:

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You can’t blame @brianlarsen for everything, just most things. On this occasion it was the other culprit, @Richard_close2u, who’s been messing with you when doing some house keeping.

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Well …I think it’s definitely worth a try… just wait for a year and keep doing it and then evaluate… right? :roll_eyes:

It remains strange that such a tropic jumps up in this case (of course with my limited knowledge of this and what I see of it) :grimacing:

But it was worth the fun for me but a waste of Rich’s effort…

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The clue was in the link my dear Watson :face_with_monocle:

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OOOOoooooooooooooooooooo :see_no_evil: :see_no_evil: :see_no_evil:

Holy crrrrrra…I sat there thinking for 4 minutes because even with your comment I still didn’t get it…I almost got a stab in the head, I never pay attention to things like that man :upside_down_face: :joy: …Thanks for the explanation to this computer is moronic :roll_eyes:

Greetings :see_no_evil:

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Haha, I’m afraid things have been too hectic for this Luddite to be throwing sabots in the well-oiled machine… :smiling_imp: :rofl:
Thank you for your faith, James :innocent:
Shame on you Rogier :stuck_out_tongue:

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Hello! Welcome back to playing guitar! Your understanding of chord names is pretty spot on.

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