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Please help identify bass chord symbol

PeterFromAkita

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Sorry, probably a stupid question. But what does this symbol mean? And what do I play? Seems like a regular Major chord to me. Thanks for the help.
IMG_20250106_070428_006.jpg
 
It would help to see the key signature and if they are using the treble cleff on the lower stave. :)
Just reading the notes and guessing, I would say...
Counter bass of E (G#) and the E7th chord button.
F and the F-major chord button
A and the A-major chord button.

Assuming you are looking at the center measure of all 3 lines.
 
It would help to see the key signature and if they are using the treble cleff on the lower stave. :)
Just reading the notes and guessing, I would say...
Counter bass of E (G#) and the E7th chord button.
F and the F-major chord button
A and the A-major chord button.

Assuming you are looking at the center measure of all 3 lines.
Ah yes... Sorry. Its in G.
IMG_20250106_084921_666.jpg


And yes. Specifically the cyrillic letter of Б. In the same etude he also uses M for major. So what is here the difference?
Thanks again. Still trying to get used to stardella.
 
My mystery decoder ring for Eastern European compositions has been to look at the key signature then play the chord. Non ACA conventions so just familiarity rules
 
Are you talking about "Б"?
In soviet squeezebox literature for chord-bass instruments you often get such notation.
Б = major
М = minor
7 = Dominant 7th.
У = Diminished

You also sometimes get the root note in brackets under it, especially if the preceding bass fundamental is not the root of the chord. You can see this in the bottom left corner of your photo. Am has the A in brackets just after the chord. This is not a suggestion to play A fundamental - it's just there to tell you the root of the chord above (technically, just before) it.

It's done to facilitate reading the score without having to learn to sight-read the bass-clef chord dots. Particularly in scores aimed at beginners. Unless there's a bracketed note to tell you the root, you just assume that the chord is the same as the fundamental you have just played and you only look out for the letter, not the dots that make up the chord.

"М" is already reserved for "Minor", so for major they use "Б" - I suspect it's from the word "Big" ("Большой").
Diving into the semantics, you have "big" and "small" thirds instead of "major" and "minor" thirds when you talk about intervals in Russian.

"In the same etude he also uses M for major." That's not right. You either mis-read the chord, or there's a typo. Soviet books are absolutely riddled with typos - quality control was about as bad as their mass-produced accordions.

PS you probably know this already, but I think you mentioned you play a C-griff box, and all Soviet literature is for B-griff, so the fingerings won't apply to you.
 
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That's not right.
As a beginner, misprints can be most disconcerting.
That reminds me of my early encounters with computers which I first met at the advanced age of 50+.
My workplace was economising and I was given a venerable, used laptop with (as it turned out) a dodgy hard drive that did random things.
As I was a total beginner, I was never sure if it was me or the computer: very confusing!
However, eventually management saw the error of their ways and provided me with a brand new one!
They also paid for an introductory course in computer use at the local technical college.
It turned out, my work computer was the current thing and the college had nothing close to it neither in books nor equipment.
However, I managed to bridge the gap with the wonderfully instructive "Computers for Idiot's"!😄
To think my (cheap) iPhone currently has more memory than my huge first proper computer...it's amazing to look back and compare!😄
 
To think my (cheap) iPhone currently has more memory than my huge first proper computer...it's amazing to look back and compare!😄
Shrug. I paid DM800 (about €400 at the standard conversion rate, no adjustment for inflation) for my first memory card with 64kB of memory and I had to hand-solder it myself. My first disk drives were ahead of the technology and had a whopping 800kB per drive. Also about DM800 per drive, and I had to build my own case, power supplies, floppy controller (I did start with a kit but had to modify it extensively to make it reliable) and write my own bootstrap loaders and BIOS.

It's no longer amazing but rather ridiculous to look back and compare. Sounds like the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch from Monty Python including the punchline.
 
Are you talking about "Б"?
In soviet squeezebox literature for chord-bass instruments you often get such notation.
Б = major
М = minor
7 = Dominant 7th.
У = Diminished

You also sometimes get the root note in brackets under it, especially if the preceding bass fundamental is not the root of the chord. You can see this in the bottom left corner of your photo. Am has the A in brackets just after the chord. This is not a suggestion to play A fundamental - it's just there to tell you the root of the chord above (technically, just before) it.

It's done to facilitate reading the score without having to learn to sight-read the bass-clef chord dots. Particularly in scores aimed at beginners. Unless there's a bracketed note to tell you the root, you just assume that the chord is the same as the fundamental you have just played and you only look out for the letter, not the dots that make up the chord.

"М" is already reserved for "Minor", so for major they use "Б" - I suspect it's from the word "Big" ("Большой").
Diving into the semantics, you have "big" and "small" thirds instead of "major" and "minor" thirds when you talk about intervals in Russian.

"In the same etude he also uses M for major." That's not right. You either mis-read the chord, or there's a typo. Soviet books are absolutely riddled with typos - quality control was about as bad as their mass-produced accordions.

PS you probably know this already, but I think you mentioned you play a C-griff box, and all Soviet literature is for B-griff, so the fingerings won't apply to you.
Now this all makes much more sense! I was blindly following M for major etc.
Mr. Zhikrivetskiy dedicated this music to his dear wife. I was already wandering what a complicated relationship he must have to dedicate such a dissonant piece to his spouse.
And the "counterbasses" gave me a good workout. Especially G#7/E which turned out to be just E7.
Thanks again for clearing this up.
 
64K *and* a disk drive? Loogs-yer-ee!

First computer I owned had 2K of RAM and if you wanted to save owt you had ta hook it up to tape recorder.

I didn't own it of course, but the first computer I was paid to operate was a 1960s PDP9. It *could* save to a tape machine once up and running. But starting it required running 2 metres of paper tape through a reader. Even when I worked on it in the 1980s it was ancient, but the guy I worked for had vast arcane knowledge about its innards.

Edit: and with the wonders of the internet, I found a video of the only PDP9 still working doing exactly this start up!
 
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64K *and* a disk drive? Loogs-yer-ee!

First computer I owned had 2K of RAM and if you wanted to save owt you had ta hook it up to tape recorder.
Why do you think I put up with writing a BIOS for using floppy disks? I actually didn't have the money for a tape recorder back then and used a proper 1/4" reel-to-reel tape recorder, but its end-of-tape detection had a tendency to spark and burn holes into the tape proper rather than just the signaling metal bit on the tape's end. At 2400Baud and with a PLL-based recovery circuit, my tape interface was actually both faster and more reliable than what was typical at the time. And my keyboard was virtually indestructible since it had no contacts whatsoever. The only thing that tended to get unhinged in Space Invaders sessions was the equalisation mechanism for the space bar that made it respond equally well across its considerable width (this was before the age of Fn, Alt, Menu, Windows, and AltGr keys, and Ctrl was not in the bottom row; instead the space bar was complemented by two cursor keys each left and right).

I always had a penchant for getting only the best of the awful. I play accordion.
 
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a 1960s PDP9. It *could* save to a tape machine once up and running. But starting it required running 2 metres of paper tape through a reader.
You could start it from a paper tape reader? Luxury! The CDC6400 used in the computing center when I started going there (which I did uncommonly young because of interest) needed to get its bootstrap loader toggled into memory using switches. Of course the building had its own power supply backups so the operators did not have to do this other than after repairs/replacements. At any rate, paper tape was frowned upon because of its fragility. Everybody there was using punch cards. And a mouse was not an input device but the main danger to longtime data storage.
 
I remember the PDPs. And shuffled thousands of punch cards for the oh so modern IBM 360. My first pc was a Gateway. Those were the days!
 
You could start it from a paper tape reader? Luxury! The CDC6400 used in the computing center when I started going there (which I did uncommonly young because of interest) needed to get its bootstrap loader toggled into memory using switches. Of course the building had its own power supply backups so the operators did not have to do this other than after repairs/replacements. At any rate, paper tape was frowned upon because of its fragility. Everybody there was using punch cards. And a mouse was not an input device but the main danger to longtime data storage.

No punch card reader on ours, it likely had more peripherals in its day, but by the time I used it it was in the corner of a research lab.
It's scary to think when I used the PDP it was 20-25 years old, and that was 35 years ago! I belong in the museum too!
 
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.Dang, My first was a Heath H8 - Then I upgraded to a H89. Both were in kit form... Took several days to solder all those chip sockets onto the motherboard, build the power supply, wire the monitor, etc....Assembly language was a b...h.
 
.Dang, My first was a Heath H8 - Then I upgraded to a H89. Both were in kit form... Took several days to solder all those chip sockets onto the motherboard, build the power supply, wire the monitor, etc....Assembly language was a b...h.

I loved assembly language. 40 years on my and a friend (who has a PhD in this sort of thing) still test each other on 6502 op codes. Though as the years pass, I've forgotten the hex values, but I could still probably throw together a little programme.
 
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