Note relations for Shawzin Chords?

[(PSN)instantna_sonzai]

Thanks for the help in advance.

"Plucking a string while holding down a combination of frets produces a chord instead of a single note" (with the exception of Tiamat Shawzin), and I am a little bit confused about how these chords work. Basically I was looking for something like the table under the heading "Note Relations" as in the Shawzin Wiki page, but for chords; I have been trying to find if anyone wrote it down, but I could not, so sorry if I merely missed it due to my searching skills.

• Are these chords merely each note, that would have resulted if I pressed each fret separately, played together?
  
  For example, if I produce a chord pluck 1st string while holding down Sky and Earth fret together, is it merely two notes together, (1st string + Sky Fret) + (1st string + Earth Fret)?
  So for example if it is in Pentatonic Minor, if I produce a chord by pressing what would have been for G4 and D#5, is that chord merely G4+D#5 simultaneously played?
  
  Because I swear I hear three notes not two, but I am aware that I have not zero, but minus musical talent.
   
  • If the answer to the question above is yes, does that apply for the chord holding down all three frets together too? E.g. if I produce a chord by (1st string + Sky + Earth + Water), is this same as (1st string + Sky) + (1st string + Earth) + (1st string + Water)?

 

Also sorry DE, there was no appropriate tag for this question so I had to just pick one.

[Buff00n]

Okay, here's the full chart.  I have a few inconsistencies highlighted in red, I filed a bug for those.

[R4bbit0le]

I am just gonna point in the direction of the most qualified person to answer this question.
Try to message a player by the name Buff00n
He has adapted thousands of tunes and it's The expert on mandachord.

[Buff00n]

Haha, the responder on your post was referring to my Mandachord work.  I've done thousands of requests and written an app, Mandascore.

Luckily, I also do a ton of stuff with the Shawzin.  When it first came out I figured out by ear what the chords actually were for every scale.  Right now I'm actually in the very early stages of writing a Mandascore-like app for Shawzin, and the first thing I did was double-check all those chords and start making some graphics.  I'm kind of swamped right now, but give me a few days and I can produce something you can use.

On 2023-03-29 at 1:06 AM, (PSN)instantna_sonzai said:

Because I swear I hear three notes not two

You're not hearing things, most multi-fret chords play three notes.  However, they do NOT have a direct relationship to the frets played separately.

There is a pattern, mostly.  Start with the first six non-chord notes of almost any scale:

1. (no fret) + 1
2. (no fret) + 2
3. (no fret) + 3
4. (air) + 1
5. (air) + 2
6. (air) + 3

Then the following chords have the corresponding scale note as the lowest note.  The note two scale steps higher is the middle note in the chord, and the note four scale steps higher is the high note in the chord:

1. (air + earth) + 1
2. (air + earth) + 2
3. (air + earth) + 3
4. (earth + water) + 1
5. (earth + water) + 2
6. (earth + water) + 3

And the following chords start over again, with the same corresponding scale note as the lowest note.  However, the middle note is one scale step higher, and the high note is three scale steps higher:

1. (air + water) + 1
2. (air + water) + 2
3. (air + water) + 3
4. (air + earth + water) + 1
5. (air + earth + water) + 2
6. (air + earth + water) + 3

For example, it's easiest to see this pattern with the Major scale chord set.  Here's the scale, along with the first set of six chords and the second set of six chords:

There are a lot of exceptions to this pattern.

• The Chromatic scale is different, the twelve chords just go right up the full scale and don't start over in the middle.
• There are a handful of chords in the weirder scales that break the pattern.  Hexatonic, Hirajoshi, and Phrygian all have a few of these.
• Corbu has its own completely different set of chords for every scale
• Aristei and Void's Song have a small number of of weirdly messed up chords.  I'm not sure if those are bugs or intentional.
• And yeah, Tiamat just slaps.

Like I said, I have all the information kicking around.  I just need some time to make it presentable.