Create slash chords in Hookpad?

1

How do I create a simple slash chord? Ex. Bm7/E? I’ve looked at other posts in the forum, but no one seems to answer this question? I’ve typed in Bm7/E in the “type of chord” search field, but nothing comes up? Is there any way to accomplish this feat?

Thanks,

2

Slash chords aren’t a thing (yet?) in Hookpad, but you can use the “Tone Sets” feature to help find it:

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Closest I could get is an Em7(sus2sus4).
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3

@jbjafb

Hookpad organizes its chord by function, rather than by chord name. For example, inversions of I and V in C major would be: C/E, C/G, G/B, or G/D.

Bm7/E isn’t really a “simple” slash chord, and to understand how that chord functions takes a bit of music theory.

The notes in that chord are: E, B, F#, D, A

If the A were a G, then the chord would be an Em9 (E B F# D G), but to make the G an A requires us to suspend the 3rd.

So that means that Bm7/E is enharmonically equvalent to Em9sus4

To get this chord into Hookpad we need to first ask which key we’re in. For example, that chord probably doesn’t have a lot of function in C major, but may make more sense in G major or E minor instead, where the F# is diatonic. An Em9 in the key of G is a vi9, so its suspended version would be vi9sus4

You might wonder, what’s the purpose of thinking of this chord as an Em chord rather than an a Bm chord? The reason is because its musical function will act much more similar to an Em chord, and your knowledge of how Em chords work in G Major will help you understand how to use this chord in your songs.

For example, if I’m writing a chord progression that uses this chord, I might do something like:
I7 → vi9sus4 → vi9 → ii9 → V11

https://www.hooktheory.com/hookpad/view/jDgXQnBdxKl

Here I’m using the fact that I know that vi chords are good bridges between I and ii and I’m using the dissonance from the 9th to inform the complexity of the other chords.

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4

This feels like a pretty steep learning curve for something (slash chords) which are fairly common to run into while learning, being in the learning phase, I’m not sure how to reverse engineer chords to understand them functionally in the way @Ryan is suggesting.
1? Maybe a work around is to be able to manually edit the chords somehow
2? or possibly making a database of slash chord names relative to the key you’re currently in?

Perhaps this has already been made more simple in 2023. Any update?

Edit**
the slash chord I was attempting to find DID exist soon as I finished typing the name out fully
and was in the correct key.
(ie. I had typed ‘Eb/’ expecting to see all slash chords in the search but I had to type out fully ‘Eb/Bb’ to see what I was looking for) but another chord ‘F/Bb’ didn’t show up in search.

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