Do altered chords ever imply any notes?

1. What are altered chords used for?
2. How do you play an altered chord?
3. What is a G7alt chord?
4. What are altered chords piano?

What are altered chords used for?

Altered chords are best used to either pull progressions momentarily out of a strong sense of key, or to provide interesting colour to an otherwise mundane progression. Here's an example of an altered chord that achieves the first circumstance: pulling the progression away from a key.

How do you play an altered chord?

An altered chord is when you change one or more of the notes in a diatonic chord (a chord taken from a diatonic scale, as shown above) by either raising it or lowering it a semitone. If we're in C major like the scales above, a dominant chord (which would be G major) would use the notes G – B – D.

What is a G7alt chord?

Typically, a dominant seventh chord is considered altered if either or both the 5th or 9th are chromatically raised or lowered. (“G7alt” might mean a G7 with both an altered 5th and 9th, but is vague in that it doesn't specify how the 5th and 9th are chromatically altered.)

What are altered chords piano?

Altered chords are a special category of chords that - as the name implies - alter other chords. There are, for example, altered dominant seventh chords with a flattened or a sharp fifth: 7-5 and 7+5.