A musical chord is defined as three or more notes played at the same time. I could see complaining about the definition being wrong if it was one or more notes, or even two or more notes, but when it’s three or more notes I think it’s clear that it means something more specific than a set of notes.
I see that’s the definition in Wikipedia. It has two citations. One is to a source that says “three or more”. The other is to a different source that says “two or more”. Hmm.
The OED says “three or more … rarely of two notes only”. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music says any number “but usually of not fewer than 3″. The Chambers Dictionary of Music says three or more. I have a bunch of elementary music theory books but curiously none of them sees fit to define the word “chord” so far as I can tell. Everything else I can find basically assumes the reader knows well enough what a chord is.
My guess is that most practicing musicians, if asked “does something need three notes to be a chord?”, would say something like “meh, who cares?”.
A musical chord is defined as three or more notes played at the same time. I could see complaining about the definition being wrong if it was one or more notes, or even two or more notes, but when it’s three or more notes I think it’s clear that it means something more specific than a set of notes.
I see that’s the definition in Wikipedia. It has two citations. One is to a source that says “three or more”. The other is to a different source that says “two or more”. Hmm.
The OED says “three or more … rarely of two notes only”. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music says any number “but usually of not fewer than 3″. The Chambers Dictionary of Music says three or more. I have a bunch of elementary music theory books but curiously none of them sees fit to define the word “chord” so far as I can tell. Everything else I can find basically assumes the reader knows well enough what a chord is.
My guess is that most practicing musicians, if asked “does something need three notes to be a chord?”, would say something like “meh, who cares?”.