Talk:Elektra chord

Two questions

When it talks about complement does it mean the seven notes that are not in the Electra chord? I think that is right because the seven other notes make the dominant thirteenth of G minor (D F# A C Eb G Bb). There is a link to an article called Complement (music) but it is about something else.

How can a chord be monomaniacal? Teenly (talk) 22:59, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

It's an interesting word. Monomaniacal. Gingermint (talk) 00:31, 30 September 2009 (UTC) I would imagine that, dramatically, somehow it proposes or represents an idée fixe or it give some listeners that sensation of obsession or perhaps it pervades the score of Electra in one form or another ... or maybe I really have no idea how a chord can be monomaniacal, either and we need a little more in the article to clarify this. Gingermint (talk) 00:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Two more questions

"The Elektra chord is a 'complexly dissonant signature-chord' and motivic elaboration..." Of what is it an elaboration?

"The Elektra chord's complement appears at important points and the two chords form a 10-note pitch collection..." If Teenly's conjecture about the meaning of the term "complement" in this context is correct — and I'm sure it is — then how can any chord and its complement form a pitch collection of other than 12 notes? Fenneck (talk) 13:25, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

(By the way, if you spell the so-called "Elektra Chord" Db F Ab Cb E you get the so-called "Hendrix Chord", which proves that Jimi knew just as much about monomaniacal polymorphic bipolar elaborations to the diminished complement as Strauss did.) So-called Fenneck (talk) 16:54, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Debussy example questionable.

I question the statement that the Elektra chord appears in Debussy's "Feuilles Mortes". I just looked at the score for that piece (no. 2 in Preludes, Book 2), and can't find it anywhere (in any key - it is reasonable to suppose that a named chord like this can be transposed to any key without losing its essential character, and without losing the name).

I did find chords whose constituent notes would form the Elektra chord if rearranged in vertical order, and I assume whoever added the reference to Debussy was thinking of this. But with complex chords like this, inverting the notes - in particular putting a different note in the bass - so radically changes the nature of the chord that I don't believe it would be appropriate to regard it as being the same. For instance, suppose we use the given example of the Elektra chord in the article: E B C# E# G#, from the bass upwards (or E B Db F Ab - I would accept that in ambiguous chords of this sort, enharmonic spelling can be variable, and makes no difference to what you hear). To arrange these notes into the type of chord Debussy uses, you would have to arrange them thus (from the bass upwards): C# G# E# B E (or Db Ab F B E). If you try this out on the piano and then compare it with the Elektra chord, you will see how utterly different these sound - like totally different chords, in fact. For this reason, I feel the Debussy example should be removed, although if someone can show that the Elektra chord is defined solely by the constituent notes and not by the order they are arranged vertically, I guess the Debussy example could remain. But if that is the case, there are probably hundreds of classical pieces from the late 19th century that use the chord, not to mention probably thousands of jazz pieces, blues pieces, and so on. M.J.E. (talk) 16:48, 7 September 2011 (UTC)