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Extended Chords Explained
Adding notes to a chord to enrich harmony can be a confusing topic – and gymnastic for the fingers! Richard Barrett is here to help
On paper, the idea of extended chords is reasonably simple to grasp: adding extra notes to a chord beyond the root, 3rd and 5th from its ‘parent’ scale. However, once we add in the conventions that govern add, sus and 7th chords, plus concepts such as leaving the 3rd out of a dominant 11th chord to avoid dissonance, and the lack of strings/ fingers to hold all these notes down on a guitar, dark clouds within the mind can start to gather…