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Hoots : What symbols indicate the major chord, besides the root note alone and "maj"/"major"? I am making a tab schema, and I was wondering if there was a symbol one could use to refer to the root note's major triad, without reference - freshhoot.com

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What symbols indicate the major chord, besides the root note alone and "maj"/"major"?
I am making a tab schema, and I was wondering if there was a symbol one could use to refer to the root note's major triad, without reference to the actual note itself. For example, I believe "C" in a tab refers to the C major chord, C-E-G ( also 1-3-5).

Is there a way one can use to refer to the major chord besides using the root note alone? Is "maj" or "major" the only one (i.e. Cmaj or Cmajor)? Are there other symbols?

The help would be very appreciated!


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"C" and "Cmaj/Cmajor" are the usual ways to do it in tablature/lead sheets, but in music theory annotation, it's fairly common to write "C" for C major (which is the same as the above) and "c" or "Cm" for C minor, or even "C+" for C major and "C-" for C minor. (Edit: I now suspect the latter was the idiosyncratic notation of one of my profs.)

This is for English; other languages have their own conventions, like "Des Dur" in German for D flat major.


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You're correct that C without a qualifier usually implies C major in the context of a chord sheet. However, you can explicitly indicate it as C?, CM or Cmaj. The triangle/delta is more common in a handwritten context than typed, I prefer it in general, but of course it's up to you. You won't see it in tabs because they're conventionally written using the ASCII character set, for monospaced fonts.

There are a range of symbols used, but I tend to use the below: they're universally understood, 1 character long, and unambiguous.

? major
- minor
+ augmented
o Diminished
ø Half diminished

Alternatively you have, respectively, maj/M, min/m, aug, dim, and m7b5, which are easier to type.

It's worth noting that while C- is commonly used for a minor chord, C+ is used to indicate augmented rather than major.


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I think this is the beginnings of what you want (although I'm using notes rather than tab).


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