Chords
What we know
Two notes is an interval.
Three notes is a triad.
Four notes is a seventh chord.
So what do we call this?
More 3rds stacked on to this seventh chord.
Everything that comes after the initial seventh chord are referred to as TENSIONS. In the above case, everything after E5 is a tension, and is numbered as well. We can call them tension 9 and 11.
Tension 11
Tension 9
Pretty simple, right?
It is very common in jazz harmony to refer to the 2nd scale degree, 4th scale degree, and 6th scale degrees as 9, 11, and 13. They are pretty much the same thing, only separated by an octave.
Even if you don’t include all the notes in the original seventh chord/triad - like in the example to the left (doesn’t have a 5th) - you still name the chord Emaj or Emaj7 and then include the tensions.
More examples of chords with tensions.
