Wonder What Chord This Is..., Playing song 'Summertime' in Am Options

[Ken Nielsen]

Summertime, the great song by composer George Gershwin has been a favorite of jazz artists for decades. Many, Joe Pass, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson and others all have their own 'treatment' of the song which often goes pretty far afield from the original Opera version.

What I would like to do is take this song, using the original Gershwin piano sheet music, and make it a guitar piece that follows this original version as close as possible. The first chord of the chorus is Am6, then, I have come up with this chord from just sounding out the notes to the piano version. Does anyone here know what this chord would be in the context of this song in Am. The sheet music calls for an E7 and maybe this is all that is needed to describe this chord.

TIA,

Ken

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This post has been edited by Ken Nielsen: Jul 24 2014, 01:20 AM

[Sensible Jones]

To my mind that's an E5/7.
Just because I see the bottom three strings as an E5 and the top three as an E7.
IE- Bottom three = Root-fifth-root and top three - Fifth - seventh - third.

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[klasaine]

Yeah, E7 (fifth in the bass).

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[Ken Nielsen]

To my mind that's an E5/7.
Just because I see the bottom three strings as an E5 and the top three as an E7.
IE- Bottom three = Root-fifth-root and top three - Fifth - seventh - third.

Thank You "Sensible Jones' for the reply. I saw also on this forum that there is an app called Guitar Toolkit which lets you punch in the strings and it gives you back what it thinks the chord is (technology is mind boggling) and this app named this chord as E7/B so I wonder what it's saying (because I'm very new to chords that are more than just the basic major minor and seventh.) So is what this app is saying mean that it is a E7 with an added B? And, is that simply saying what you are saying a different way? I think yours says it's an E5 with an added 7 (which would be a B note.)

Yeah, E7 (fifth in the bass).

Thank You 'klasaine' This is a great forum to belong to. I appreciate the help.

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[Gabriel Leopardi]

Exactly! It's a E7/B chord that means that it's a dominant chord with the 5th used as the bass note. Chord can be played using different inversion so you can use each of the notes of the chord as the bass note to get different "colors" of "vibes" for the same chord.

I recommend you to check this lesson that exactly covers 7th chords inversions: HERE

Every time you don't know how a chord is called, you can use guitar pro. You tab the chord, then press "A" key on your keyboard and the chord window opens with the chord name suggestion.

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[Guido Bungenstoc...]

Every time you don't know how a chord is called, you can use guitar pro. You tab the chord, then press "A" key on your keyboard and the chord window opens with the chord name suggestion.

I wouldn't suggest this feature of GP for all cases. Due to enharmonic equivalent sometimes the chord name and the notes in the notations aren't right there. I love GP and use it a lot but this "feature" most of the time(specially when using modulation) is just terrible.
Ken, I really would suggest, if you want to learn more about chords(and their structure!), reading a good book about guitar harmonies. :-)

Like the others already said: it's a E7/B.
But in some cases It would sound a lot better if you avoid having TWO bass notes( b as the fifth and e as the rood here) at the same time! Most of the times TWO bass notes at once are clashing or producing an undefined sound. You can leave a little "hole" there between the low b note and the next octave by just not playing the e on the d string! That's all and the chord will sound more defined.
This chord version sounds a lot better too:

-0-
-3-
-1-
---
-2-
---

This would work too of course if you have a third in the bass, for example E7/G#

---
-3-
-1-
-2-
---
-4-


Of course rules can be broken, specially in metal you hear this kind of doubled bass notes. :-)

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This post has been edited by Guido Bungenstock: Jul 26 2014, 07:14 PM