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Consider the initial segment of Antonio Lauro's "Nocturno":

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I have been reading music for a long time, but with total ignorance of music theory (meaning I spent years learning and reading scores "succesfully" without never truly understanding or analyzing what I was reading from a theoretical point of view). I am not a musician of profession so I could afford to do this, but lately I've been wanting to learn more about music theory.

All of this is to say I know very little, so please excuse if my question is rather silly. But I have struggled to understand the meaning of "III 4/6" above the first chord of the piece.

As far as my understanding goes, III simply denotes the chord whose root note is the third scale degree with respect to the signature key (which is D minor). So III should map to F major. However, the triad G-D-Bflat is not F major but G minor.

Furthermore, 4/6 should mean the second inversion of the chord; this is, the triad of the chord denoted by III with the bass note being the 5th of that triad. If I am right in saying III maps to F major, this is not the case, for the fifth of F is C (not the bass note of our chord, which is G). And if I am correct in observing the chord in question is not F major but G minor, we have no inversion at all, for the base note ---as stated--- is G itself.

Of course I am assuming I am terribly confused with regards to something rather elementary. Would very much appreciate some clarification of this. If anyone is interested, an execution of the piece that shows the score can be listened to here.

Andy Bonner
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lafinur
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    I assume this is guitar music? Music for performance doesn't normally contain harmonic analysis, but roman numerals are used for other meanings. For violin it usually indicates which string to play a note on. For guitar it can indicate a position or fret number. I'll let someone with more guitar knowledge give an official answer since I'm not sure about the details, but I imagine the "4/6" is also telling us something about the fingering. – Andy Bonner May 16 '23 at 13:08
  • @AndyBonner furthermore, harmonic analysis is typically written below the staff and typically includes an analysis of every chord. – phoog May 16 '23 at 21:11
  • @Aaron: I don't think it was correct to close this question. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the "2/3BII" notation (which 1) looks completely different; 2) would be written as "2/3 [B or C] III" and not "III 4/6" and 3) denotes a bar over 4 strings while here you need only hit three). – Ramillies May 16 '23 at 21:14
  • @Ramillies See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barre_chord#Notation; looks like there's plenty of variation. – Andy Bonner May 16 '23 at 21:33
  • @AndyBonner: hmm, that's interesting. I've never ever seen that, and still holding the barre over 4 string is kind of wasteful, but that could also be a way of reading the notation. – Ramillies May 16 '23 at 22:25
  • The question "What does the notation "2/3BII" mean?" does contain answers to my doubt. The meaning of the notation here turns out to be "with a barre in the third fret pressing 4 out of 6 strings" (III 4/6). – lafinur May 16 '23 at 23:03

1 Answers1

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I'm absolutely not sure — this isn't any kind of standard notation (at least not one that I'd know, and I'd say I'm a pretty experienced guitar player), but here's a shot.

As you correctly note, it's definitely not harmonic analysis. So it has something to do with the fingering. "III" means either third position or a barré chord on the third fret, which is quite natural for a G minor chord. Furthermore, we see that the third finger is used to play the G on the fourth string. So the fingering that I imagine is meant here is this:

  • using 1st finger, bar on the third fret
  • using the 3rd, play G on the fourth string
  • using the 4th, play B-flat on the first string (which happens to be on the sixth fret).

So my theory is that the 4/6 pertains only to the B-flat and is supposed to mean "fourth finger, sixth fret". But I'm definitely not sure. This is the only theory that I'm able to come up with and that contains the numbers 4 and 6 in any reasonable connection with the music; nothing more :—).

Anyway, I would just ignore it when playing the piece (in my opinion that nobody needs to agree with, fingerings should not be even written in the scores, except for very difficult spots, and if they are written, they should be ignored by the performer). Looks like someone tried to be overly helpful with fingerings and made more trouble than it was worth.

Ramillies
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  • Thank you for your answer. The meaning of the notation here turns out to be "with a barre in the third fret pressing 4 out of 6 strings" (III 4/6). Which makes sense. Although, as you point out, there are at least three comfortable and equally satisfactory ways to play the chord, so the indication did just create more trouble than it was worth. – lafinur May 16 '23 at 23:04