Petrushka Guitar Chord

Today's Guitar Chord of the Day is 

The Petrushka chord is a frequently used polychord used in Igor Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka. These two major triads, C major and F# major - a tritone apart, these two chords clash when sounded together and create a dissonant chord.

There are a number of ways to finger this chord on the guitar this inversion is up on the 8th fret:


The C major chord uses the notes C, E and G
The F# major chord uses the notes F#, A# and C#

Polychords use the notes of two chords together and are written like this:
       C
       F#
Polychords shouldn't be confused with slash chords. Slash chords indicate a chord with an alternate bass note. So C / F# is a slash chord that is played as a C major chord with F# in the bass.

Elektra Chord Guitar

Today's Guitar Chord of the day is the 'Elektra chord'. The Elektra chord is a polychord used by the composer Richard Strauss to represent the title character of his opera Elektra.

Polychord's are chords that are created by playing the notes of two chords at the same time. Here the notes of C# major and E major chord are played together, this results in a dissonant polychord.

Here are the notes of each chord:

• C#major = C#, E#, G#
• Emajor  = E, G#, B

Polychords are written like this with a horizontal line between the two chords:

C#

E

It's important to note that polychords are different to slash chords. Slash chords symbols use a forward slash written like this: C#/E this tells us that the chord is a C# major chord with an E in the bass. The other notes of the E major chord are not used for slash chords. With polychords the notes of both chords are played at the same time.

Using polychords opens up a whole new harmonic vocabulary. Check back soon for more polychords at Guitar Chord of the Day.