Chordboard: History and Key Facts

The chordboard is an electronic musical instrument based on software, and played by a keyboard controller. One implementation is a set of four MIDI keyboards arranged vertically. The patent for this musical technology obtained by Grant Johnson, inventor, in 1995, specifically identifies the seven chords that exist for each key signature, and how these key signatures can be selected at any time while playing the instrument to achieve a key signature change, and thus an instant change in chords. In every key signature there are seven chords, and each of these chords are identified on the chordboard as follows (signified by the Nashville Number System):

I chord is major tonality, referred to as ROOT CHORD

ii chord is minor tonality, referred to as SUPER TONIC CHORD

iii chord is minor tonality, referred to as MEDIANT CHORD

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Chordboard by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.