What does a first-inversion chord taste like?
Chords – harmonies – have flavors, and they’re more complex than you think at first. Take first-inversion chords.
At first, I thought that a first inversion C major chord (E in the bass) tasted the same as C major. But it doesn’t. Over time, you learn to taste a slight E-minor flavor in the chord. That means it can adopt some of the work of an E-minor chord, just like oat milk can adopt some of the work of cow’s milk.
A minor-key ii chord is another example. Bmi7(b5), the ii-chord in A minor, tastes a lot like a viiº7 chord in C major. (They have all the same notes, after all.) But it also shares a lot in common with the minor iv chord (D minor in the key of A minor), so they can do a lot of the same work, because they’re closely related.
Aº7, Cº7, E-flatº7, and F#º7 all have similar flavor profiles (the same notes, enharmonically), so they can step in for each other in recipes.
We think of chords as one thing. C Major. But they’re more complex and interesting than that, and once you can learn to tease out the subtler flavors, you find new ways to use them and pair them.
Maybe we need fewer theory professors and more chord sommeliers.