Here are some thoughts on the thing you might know of as the Hendrix chord. Now if you feel like you spotted both a minor third and a major third in there, you’d sort of be right. This is an altered chord and aside from the fact that it’s groovy to have it both ways, there’s a couple things that are interesting about it.
I still hear it as a third but the title of third has been awarded to major third so we’re going to call it a sharp nine. Another thing that’s interesting is this really seems to want to be a major chord with a minor third on top and not the other way around. So why is that?
Well for one thing that leaves us with this tritone on the top and we’ve already got one of those. Swap that out with a perfect fourth on the top and for reasons we’ve already discussed, that sounds really constant. It’s bluesy, it’s got attitude, it’s non-committal.
An altered chord typically creates another leading tone, often by borrowing it from a parallel minor key. If this one isn’t in your vocabulary, give it a try and if it is, give it another look. The The Hendrix Court.
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