Combined name for a chord?

[jancivil]

I was playing a chord in the scale of C major with the notes being: C E G B F A. The name I can think of is C major 7 add 11 add 13.but I'm not sure if I can name such thing with two "added" pronunciation.What's the correct name of this chord? & why it should be named so?

You could call it that, but the name may not be useful at all.
As to the “add” designation, unsure why you want it. An add designation is like ‘Cm add 2‘ to indicate the D next to the Eb rather than the one at the 9th. “add 11” doesn’t have a sense I can picture.

The F in a C major 7 is problematic, because full 11ths or 13ths connotes a sound from jazz and no one does this.
The useful name has to do with the relationship with other chords and primarily to key. I’m inclined to agree with F as the actual root in terms of usefulness. Not necessarily, however. The objection to Perfect 4th or 11th on a M7 is subjective and kind of ideological.
IE: it depends on the music. Where we are right now, it strikes me as naive, though.

[msf sadib]

I was playing a chord in the scale of C major with the notes being: C E G B F A. The name I can think of is C major 7 add 11 add 13.but I'm not sure if I can name such thing with two "added" pronunciation.What's the correct name of this chord? & why it should be named so?

You could call it that, but the name may not be useful at all.
As to the “add” designation, unsure why you want it. An add designation is like ‘Cm add 2‘ to indicate the D next to the Eb rather than the one at the 9th. “add 11” doesn’t have a sense I can picture.

The F in a C major 7 is problematic, because full 11ths or 13ths connotes a sound from jazz and no one does this.
The useful name has to do with the relationship with other chords and primarily to key. I’m inclined to agree with F as the actual root in terms of usefulness. Not necessarily, however. The objection to Perfect 4th or 11th on a M7 is subjective and kind of ideological.
IE: it depends on the music. Where we are right now, it strikes me as naive, though.

Are you the legendary jan they were chanting about? Some folks were talking to wait for your reply

[Functional]

You could call it that, but the name may not be useful at all.
As to the “add” designation, unsure why you want it. An add designation is like ‘Cm add 2‘ to indicate the D next to the Eb rather than the one at the 9th. “add 11” doesn’t have a sense I can picture.

Extensions don't contain voicing information, so essentially saying add2 is exactly the same as saying add9; dealers choice however you decide to voice it, just that you have to have it. Of course it might be important that the voice is on the soprano for instance, but for this very reason notation exists, right?

With that being said, there are cultural connotations and indeed, there's probably plenty of musicians looking at add2 thinking automatically that it's probably closed voicing. Likewise, if they look at 6/9, they probably are thinking it should be voiced quartally from the major third to sixth to ninth. I'm also sure that there are miserable professors who would flunk their students for stating that add2 and add9 have no inherent distinction.

The way I see it, since harmony (for westerners anyway) is tertian, designations like add2 or add4 make less sense than 9 or 11. 13 is harder to justify, but not impossible: sixth is considered to replace the seventh, 13 isn't.

Otherwise just like Jan said, the name of this chord depends 100% on the context. Assuming it's a C-based chord, the correct name is Cmaj13. Why? Because having, or not having, the ninth in there is of little consideration as having it or excluding it doesn't change much the identity of the chord. But if it would be actually important for whatever reason, this chord is simply Cmaj13(no9).

But, if this happened to be a chord based on B, then it would be very mandatory to express that the minor third is not there by using (no3) designation. It's rare honestly to see this designation for anything else than the third, fifth or the seventh. It's questionable if even "no5" is really necessary, but "no9" is certainly not.

There's also easy rule: if you have more than one "add" extension, the chances are that you probably goofed it up. The situations where more than one "add" extension could occur either do not exist or are so nuanced that whoever is using them, probably has very, very good reasons to use them besides trolling musicians. Trolling is a great reason though, just not necessarily musically speaking great nor useful.

[Forgotten]

Otherwise just like Jan said, the name of this chord depends 100% on the context. Assuming it's a C-based chord, the correct name is Cmaj13. Why? Because having, or not having, the ninth in there is of little consideration as having it or excluding it doesn't change much the identity of the chord. But if it would be actually important for whatever reason, this chord is simply Cmaj13(no9).

That was my way of thinking earlier in the thread, as it's not uncommon to exclude one note in an extended chord, either because it's too much of a stretch or simply because you run out of fingers.

I hadn't really thought about how to name it differently from a regular C Maj 13 - I would just not play that particular note, and if anyone asked I would just say I'm not playing the 9th.

[Functional]

Otherwise just like Jan said, the name of this chord depends 100% on the context. Assuming it's a C-based chord, the correct name is Cmaj13. Why? Because having, or not having, the ninth in there is of little consideration as having it or excluding it doesn't change much the identity of the chord. But if it would be actually important for whatever reason, this chord is simply Cmaj13(no9).

That was my way of thinking earlier in the thread, as it's not uncommon to exclude one note in an extended chord, either because it's too much of a stretch or simply because you run out of fingers.

I hadn't really thought about how to name it differently from a regular C Maj 13 - I would just not play that particular note, and if anyone asked I would just say I'm not playing the 9th.

There's lots of ways to voice things anyway. I'm not sure if this is a matter of playing this chord on a guitar but you can, obviously, play Cmaj13 easily without missing anything on a keyboard, even with one hand (although granted, it would sound like a wide & terrible tone cluster).

In practice though, the world is different. You'd usually omit tones for the sake of sonority. Rather than omitting the ninth, you'd omit the eleventh; F, since it's an avoid note anyway; not only does it form a tritone against the seventh (which isn't a big deal by itself), but it's a semitone above the major third; it clashes heavily against the identity of the chord and thus forms very serious dissonance that isn't usually called for. You can also chromatically alter the tone to F# to get rid of the problem, but this you would want to express as Cmaj13#11 or Cmaj13(#11). Brackets are nice, for sake of clarity!

After the F, you have the G which can be safely omitted as it's the fifth - not much changes for the identity of the chord. Then the next safest bet is the root assuming something else takes care of that anyway. Then the safest thing to omit is the ninth, assuming you have to have the 13th there (otherwise, 13th). It would still, more or less, remain Cmaj13 as per its identity. The extensions above seventh don't really have that significant impact anyway, so just express it as far as the furthest extension goes and make sure to express any alterations (#5, b5, #11) as these are significant, make sure to get the seventh right (no7 if there ain't one, maj if there is one and it's maj) and then express whatever is on the bass after a slash, if necessary.

All of this of course assumes that this is, in fact, a C-based chord. Since no context is provided, we can't be sure of that either - this could be a lot of things, really.

This is a long explanation but I think that it's helpful to think of these things as such. I used to be there myself, just like the OP, searching for the particular expression to particular thing - as detailed as possible; you need the 100% correct name that preserves all the nuances.

But after my experiences, all I can say is that reality just doesn't work like that. Each chord has its own identity defined through somewhat interconnected, yet hierarchical relationship. Having that ninth there or not isn't a big deal - let it be dealers artistic choice. You'll unlikely ruin a chord progression by not including a ninth somewhere - and if it really is that important matter, then you're using the wrong tools to describe your musical idea. You need musical notation to convey your idea, mere chord notation is no longer enough.

And it shouldn't be forgotten that people who are proficient with their shit will know what to do anyway. Not long time ago I observed a conversation in facebook between jazz bassists laughing at their band members instructing them to play inversion here and there, then they just ignore those calls ("because this isn't R&B music"), playing the damn root instead and then get appraised by their bandmates for their impressive reharmonization skills. They already know what actually matters. Just like a pianist looking at Cmaj13 will definitively play either Cmaj13#11 or omit the eleventh unless they trust the source on that (avoid notes are not really notes that you can't play; they're notes that need to be approached with caution).

[Forgotten]

Yes, I meant guitar with regard to difficulties, as it's much easier on piano (unless of course you're only playing a left hand part and improvising with the right), but then voice leading might be a reason on piano that it's convenient to drop notes from extended chords.

Quite honestly, I don't think it's a big deal to drop notes from extended chords, and for most jazz players they wouldn't think twice about doing it.

[Functional]

Quite honestly, I don't think it's a big deal to drop notes from extended chords, and for most jazz players they wouldn't think twice about doing it.

Exactly, I edited previous post and added in a part just about this. Seasoned musicians usually know what to do as per their instructions, especially in music that is so heavily based on improvisation. And you will never see Cmaj13 in classical music really. I guess maybe impressionists could do it, but otherwise not really.

[jancivil]

Two salient things from what I posted:
1) eg., F on a CM7 almost never happens in a jazz context. Reason 1 for that is aesthetic, it’s not as pretty or like that. It contains G7. That could be cool, I’m just pointing out a reality, CM7 is not a dominant 7th quality tension, it tends to be I or IV (or VI), more at repose.
2), following 1), an F root gives you about the same quality, sans that little problem. This was pointed out above. This, theoretically, agrees with the fundament of the Lydian Chromatic Concept of George Russell (which I find to be technically valid per se).
NB: Acoustically, #4 or #11 is the 3rd harmonic of ^7; cf., F C G D A E B has a consonance which is marred by F placed over C E B.
Besides the subjective ‘jazz’, or the style consideration of the LCC and #11, it’s objectively ‘less’ tense as a I or goal reached/plateau type of thing.

Full 13th is all of a 7 note scale, so there is kind of a pandiatonic wash to be cognizant of.

I can’t know what you want to do, so...

[BertKoor]

I can’t know what you want to do, so...

One fool can come up with more questions than three academics can answer.
That can be quite amusing. As observed before:

There's also easy rule: if you have more than one "add" extension, the chances are that you probably goofed it up. The situations where more than one "add" extension could occur either do not exist or are so nuanced that whoever is using them, probably has very, very good reasons to use them besides trolling musicians. Trolling is a great reason though, just not necessarily musically speaking great nor useful.

[Forgotten]

I can’t know what you want to do, so...

One fool can come up with more questions than three academics can answer.

But don't forget the first post:

I was playing a chord in the scale of C major with the notes being: C E G B F A.

I interpreted this as "I have the notes of the C Major scale available, and I played these simultaneously".

The question was how to name this, but I think the question needs more context as (per Jan) the reason for playing this chord is unknown - is this just playing these notes in isolation from a piece of music, or is there an intention to take this chord somewhere? If it's just in isolation, then the naming is not really possible, and even the key is suspect.

[BertKoor]

Well yeah, I suspect the original question was mainly academic...

[Forgotten]

Well yeah, I suspect the original question was mainly academic...

Agreed, but without musical context it makes it difficult to give a definitive answer.

[Functional]

I can’t know what you want to do, so...

One fool can come up with more questions than three academics can answer.
That can be quite amusing. As observed before:

There's also easy rule: if you have more than one "add" extension, the chances are that you probably goofed it up. The situations where more than one "add" extension could occur either do not exist or are so nuanced that whoever is using them, probably has very, very good reasons to use them besides trolling musicians. Trolling is a great reason though, just not necessarily musically speaking great nor useful.

If it's of any comfort, I'm furthest thing from an academic. However, I am decent with chord nomenclature because it's useful for trolling purposes. Some might say C7, but when I thought of the most ridiculous way to name this chord that would never occur under any amount of circumstances, I'd say it's clearly a Fb(b5)(add#9)no3/Dbb

As a sidenote, it's a bold claim to say that it couldn't ever happen, but #9 and "no3" are so heavily at odds with each other, the only blatantly worse thing you could do is combine b11 with no3 in a minor-based chord - because for the most part, people contest already the possibility of b11 - but when you take away the minor third, there is no longer any meaningful way for a person to hear the major third as a b11 extension rather than, ya know, major third.

As ridiculous as this whole extension schmextension foolery might be, it actually has taught me a lot about how one ought to analyze chords because one can't help but to wonder under what pretenses something can exist... and when you combine it with the notion of chords having their identities, then you get into the territory of "what actually even matters for this and that chord". And then there you are, in standard jazz theory.

[xtp]

One fool can come up with more questions than three academics can answer.

That's a keeper, I like it . . . Dunning—Kruger style.

[jancivil]

I can’t know what you want to do, so...

One fool can come up with more questions than three academics can answer.

But don't forget the first post:

I was playing a chord in the scale of C major with the notes being: C E G B F A.

I interpreted this as "I have the notes of the C Major scale available, and I played these simultaneously".

The question was how to name this, but I think the question needs more context as (per Jan) the reason for playing this chord is unknown - is this just playing these notes in isolation from a piece of music, or is there an intention to take this chord somewhere? If it's just in isolation, then the naming is not really possible, and even the key is suspect.

My bet was “pandiatonic wash” as well; ‘6/7ths of the white keys’ is as good an answer as any at this juncture.