Another of my help me name this chord threads

[xtp]

As per usual its a name for a chord in my notebook.

musical notes in ascending order F,B,D,F#

Bº b9 ?

and to put it in context the chord sequence that follows it is;

Bb9, Abø7 , C7, B7, Ab7b5, Db7, Bb13

I guess it could be a partial chord as I have only sketched out the guitar chords. There is no bass or piano there yet.

[elcabong48]

Ok, I'll take a shot at it. My thought is that since you start on the F, I'm going to assume it's an F chord (I'm a keyboard player so my mind works that way). I think it's an altered F chord, with the 3rd omitted.

The F->B seems like a flatted 5th to me. Then the D is a 6th or a 13th, I'll call it a 6th. The F# is a flatted 9th. So the flatted 5th and 9th make me think it's an altered chord. I think it also could be called a F6b5b9. I can't explain the missing 3rd though, I guess that's just a voicing choice.

[llatham]

As per usual its a name for a chord in my notebook.

musical notes in ascending order F,B,D,F#

Bº b9 ?

and to put it in context the chord sequence that follows it is;

Bb9, Abø , C7, B7, Ab7b5, Db7, Bb13

I guess it could be a partial chord as I have only sketched out the guitar chords. There is no bass or piano there yet.

Abø - no such thing. Do you mean Abø7? If that's the case, most people using nomenclature like yours (Ab7b5 for example) would call it an Abm7b5.

Your mystery chord...

Bm/F would work, but I'd put a natural for the bass note to show that it's intentional, not that you accidentally left off the # sign (many assuming it should have been Bm/F#). To be even safer you could put Bm/E# - a little crazy but gets the point across.

Your b9 is not correct, because you're assuming the root to be F (F to Gb = b9).

It could be a form of Bº/F - but you'd have both the º5 and the regular 5 at the same time which is typically a no-no in jazz nomenclature (which is what you're basically using) - might as well call it Bm/F at that point.

HTH,
Steve

[llatham]

I think it also could be called a F6b5b9. I can't explain the missing 3rd though, I guess that's just a voicing choice.

I agree that it *could* be an "F" chord of some type in which case your (OP) b9 assumption is correct as elcabong spelled out here.

The problem becomes one of "do you want to show the root", "do you want to show the function" or "do you want as as simple and as elegant a name as possible".

F6(b5b9 no 3rd) is a bit cumbersome, as is
Foaddb9add13 or any other combination you can come up with

In other words, if a player is reading it off a chart, Bm/F is going to get them to this chord much faster than F6b5b9 or any other name like that, because you're basically saying, "play an F chord, but leave out all the things that make it an F chord except the root and then add these other alterations".

Phew

Steve

[xtp]

Cheer guys.

@llathem - sorry yes that was a typo. I have edited the post. Shes now a Abø7 chord

@elcabong48 - I went down that track too, and agree with you but found writing the chord name out is a bit wordy.

@llathem - Bm/F ... sold.

@llathem - 7b5 -> m7b5 - isnt there an old Mayan prophecy the world will end the day the 7b5 becomes extinct

[llatham]

@llathem - 7b5 -> m7b5 - isnt there an old Mayan prophecy the world will end the day the 7b5 becomes extinct

Nope. It's when you play a chord containing all 12 notes on December 12th next year

Steve