Hail

hahaha i was hoping one of the earlier posters would have called it an Eb6, but it looks like some people didn't even need the bait to think it wasn't an inversion

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mdc

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C U N T aka See You Next Tuesday

Hail

how do you know this chord isn't being played on a 6-string bass?!

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mdc

...and if the keyboardist was comping out some C's with the left hand like yeah whatever...

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C U N T aka See You Next Tuesday

Hail

why not "what if the singer's singing a c" or "what if the guitarist is mindlessly droning on a c cause that's all the guitar is good for"?

i'm eliminating musical prejudice here, buddy boy. levelin' the playing field. FWM nigga, i'm a hoodrat warrior

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cdgraves

A chord all by itself doesn't beg for inversion. Whether it's a Eb/G or Gmb6 depends on what else happens. You have to name it for what you hear, not what triad formulas say. Inversions have function beyond naming chords; they show movement in the bass. If the bass doesn't move, you can't assume it's an inversion. Inversions are, for all intents and purposes, not tonic harmonies, so it's hard to say something is in the key of Eb if the bass never actually touches the note.

Hail

occam's razor

or you could have just done like i'm surprised 5+ people didn't do and just say "what's the context" and provide no more use than to annoy TS as is appropriate

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cdgraves

Right, but Eb/G is not the simplest answer because it implies a lot of information that isn't present - namely, motion of the bass and any other chords.

I don't see you asking for context, either, so I don't think that's a very good grounds for making an assumption one way or the other. Why should we assume that the bass is in motion rather than the upper voice?

Even in common practice music such a chord is easily analyzed as a 6-5 suspension if the upper voice resolves downward. There's no need to analyze every combination of 3 notes as a different harmony unless they actually function as such. A chord is labeled for what it actually does in the music, not simply what notes are in it. If that G does anything other than move to Ab or F, it's hard to justify calling it a I6. Music theory is not a spelling bee.

If you really want some context, "picked up my guitar and played a random chord" is not the context you typically find common practice voice leading in play. The guy asked precisely because it didn't sound like a simple major triad. "Gloomy" should be a give away that the minor 3rd stuck out to his ears, and a 6-5 suspension Gm sounds a lot gloomier than a chord that's about to move to IV.