As I was the reading sheet music for John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, I noticed a chord I had never seen before. It looks like this:
I'm familiar with slash chords, but never had to practically encounter a polychord like Gm over Fm7.
The notes would be G, Bb, D played on top of F, Ab, C, Eb. Is this feasible to play on a six-string guitar? In other words, is there any theory of consolidation in terms of playing polychords with limited space?
Unless you have a seven string guitar, this chord is impossible to play on guitar if you want all chord degrees represented. Since it is a G-minor chord over an Fm7, you can really think of the total composite chord as an Fm13, which is a pretty standard jazz chord for guitarists. . . or any jazz player for that matter.
What notes you leave out in part depends on the ensemble you're playing in. For example, if you're playing in a jazz trio with guitar, sax, and drums then you're going to need to cover at least some of the rudimentary harmony (root, third, seventh, etc) with a frugal selection of upper-tertian harmony (say, the ninth and thirteenth.) Choosing a five-note chord in this way is good for having an active bass line, which is important if you're playing fingerstyle.
If you're playing with a bassist or a pianist (or both) then usually with upper-tertian chords the guitar plays a lot of the "active" or "filler" harmonies - notably chord extensions and other active tones.
On the other hand, if you want to show a clear delineation between the chords (such as Coltrane notated) then it would be wise for you to voice the Fm7 below a Gm triad. Since you will have to obviously omit one note, the fifth of the Fm7 would be omitted since it is a four note chord and the fifth is almost always omitted first as it is the least harmonically active of the pitches.
Thus, an example of an appropriate voicing would be (from lowest to highest):
F, Ab, Eb, G, Bb, D
That said, the lead sheet does not indicate the inversion of the chord, so feel free to experiment with shapes that give you the easiest flexibility - as long as the two chords remain separate. As indicated in the score, one or both chords may be in inversion if necessary.
Hope that helps.
Possibly the chord marked is not just for guitarists. To get a good voicing, the notes need to be spread over maybe 3 octaves - not easy on a guitar.With clashes like G and Ab and D and Eb,the notes won't sound good next to each other, on any instrument. When they're nearly an octave apart, they often sound great.As there are 7 notes anyway, at least one would have to be sacrificed- as usual on guitar when playing extended chords - just get someone else in the band to play the missing ones ! I guess that if the potentially clashing notes were played on different instruments with different tones/sounds, it could sound o.k. Try one basic chord on guitar while the keyboard plays the other.No, I've never seen this sort of 'slash chord' before either.
Play all fourths starting at G, you have the notes G, C, F, Bb, Eb, and Ab which is all the notes of the chord except for the D which is the 5th of the Gm.
The "lazy" way to play ordinary slash chords, is for something chordal in the mid-range (like a guitar, or right hand piano) to play the chord above the slash, and for something monophonic in the bass range (like a bass guitar, or left hand piano) to play the note below the slash.
I wonder whether an adaptation of that would apply here. The mid-range instrument plays Gm, the bass plays an arpeggio, or similar, using notes from Fm7.
Jazz!
