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Close Chords vs. Open Chords
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| Trancelover03591 |
I know that sometimes producers take the middle note of a chord and place it up an octave. I never really did this until recently, and was looking for the term for it. Some quick looking and I think the term for this is an open chord while a chord with all three notes within the same octave is a close chord.
I like doing this sometimes now to prevent crowding in the mix especially since most of the music I write is based on chord progressions. Though, I imagine there are times when a close chord is favorable.
I made a quick example in G minor. First a close chord followed by an open chord and then it repeats close/open with a different rhythm.
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| cryophonik |
| quote: | Originally posted by farris
Inversion. |
Open/closed chords aren't exactly the same thing as inversions. An inversion can also be open, if the notes are spread across more than an octave. Basically, you can think of inversions as the sequence, or order, of the chord notes from bottom to top, while open/closed refers to spread of the notes. |
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| farris |
Today I learned...
Thanks cryo! :) |
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| farris |
This is my basic understanding of inversions (for triads):
First inversion = move the root note up (an octave)
Second inversion = move second note up (an octave)
Third inversion = will move you to the same position for the chord, but an octave higher
Hence my confusion earlier with open/closed chords.
There are of course people on this forum who can explain it way better... :) |
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| Looney4Clooney |
Inversion is just a rotation of the root.
Closed form uses the most parsimonious setting so for c major , if the first inversion doesn't have the root as the soprano line, it would be open.
Third inversion is used for 4 note chords ie dominant v , diminished 7, half diminished 7 ....
To correct cryogenic or elaborate on his purposefully simplistic explanation which is adequate but wrong . Inversion only accounts for the bass tone. It does not dictate the order. In fact closed and open chords usually both dictate the order and the spread as they are usually intertwined.
Honestly these are pointless terms for dance music.
If anything, the concept was tought for pianists who accompany other musicians. Or a way to describe pieces in doctoral thesis'. It has very little practical value at least I'm anything that inst common era classical.
I thought Farris response enough to explain what is going on. The change in timbre is not a matter of open or closed but just the use of consecutive chords with inversions to give movement. |
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