Tonal Shorthand Return to catalog	Sample Page...   TONAL SHORTHAND Tonal shorthand is a graphic system which illustrates the actual notes in any harmonic structure. This system communicates through combinations of letter names and straight lines. The letter names always identify notes and the straight lines always provide additional information, much of it beyond the capabilities of conventional chord symbols. To learn tonal shorthand, a musician needs to know only the notes on a staff, the names of intervals, and the signatures of major keys. A step by step study of this handbook will then enable that musician to read and write in tonal shorthand. SINGLE-LETTER FORMATS   Chord Roots and Reference Tones In each tonal shorthand graphic, a single capital letter (with or without a sharp or flat) concurrently names both the chord root and a major key. And the scale notes of that particular major key, as defined by its key signature, become reference tones for that particular chord. And for those up on their intervals there's another handy way to visualize those reference tones-they're always major or perfect intervals above the root. INDICATOR-LINE PLACEMENT Component indicator lines follow the same pattern as the lines in a music staff-adjacent lines lie a third apart. Like ascending lines in a staff, then, the ascending order of component indicators coincides with the vertical arrangement of 3rd, 5th, 9th, 11th and 13th in chords: COMPONENT PITCH-INDICATORS Short lateral lines represent the non-root chord components and show by the direction they point whether those components are to coincide with or are to be altered from their corresponding reference tones. Slanting a single line upwards raises the reference tone a half step, slanting a single line downward lowers it a half step, and adding a shorter line parallel to and at the end of either doubles its effect, thereby establishing a full step alteration. And a level line indicates no alteration from reference tone to chord note: Indicators for the 3rd 5th and 7th respectively occupy the bottom, middle, and top areas directly behind the letter name, while indicators for the 9th, 11th and 13th occupy the area above and behind that letter: But since triads and seventh chords abound in most harmonic progressions, the entire upper space often remains blank. SEVENTH AND THIRTEENTH MARKERS Whenever a chord contains a 7th of any kind, a short vertical line placed behind and at the top of the letter name indicates the fact. Then the lateral line method can specify the actual pitch of the 7th. But without that