Enharmonic chords
Enharmonic chords are chords that have more than one name in the sense they shared the same notes. The situations are often chords in which one or more notes are omitted or in chords there one is an inversion. Notice that the note order don't has to be the same to make it enharmonic chords.
This occur with minor 7th and 6th chords; for example: Dm7 and F6:
| Dm7 | D | F | A | C |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F6 | F | A | C | D |
The order of notes is obviously deviating, but the 2nd inversion of Dm7 and F6 would accordingly be identical also in that sense.
A special case concerning enharmonic chords are the diminished 7th chords where enharmonic chords can be found inside the chord category and in four versions! For example, Cdim7, Ebdim7, Adim7 and Gbdim7, all consisting of the same notes:
| Cdim7 | C | Eb | Gb | A |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ebdim7 | Eb | Gb | A | C |
| Adim7 | A | C | Eb | Gb |
| Gbdim7 | Gb | A | C | Eb |
This explains why a multitude of dim7 chords has the same fingering on the guitar. All the four chords mentioned above can be played as XX7878.
List of enharmonic chords
Various examples of enharmonic chord:
G = Bm#5 | Ab = Cm#5 | A = C#m#5 and so on
Cm7 = Eb6 |
C#m7 = E6 | Dm7 = F6 and so on
Cmaj7 = Em/C | Dbmaj7 = Fm/Db | Dmaj7 = Gm/D and so on
Gsus2 = Dsus4 | Asus2 = Esus4 | Bsus2 = F#sus4 and so on
E6 = Eadd13
Fadd = G9sus4/F
Am/B = Amadd9/B
Since inverted versions of chord always are enharmonic, none of these are included in the list. Another case is slash chords in which the added bass note could yield two names, for example G/F and G7/F (both these chords include the notes F, G, B, D).
Neither mention in the list are add9 and add2 chords, which also always include the same notes.
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