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I cannot find these chords in my piano chord manual and think they may have alternative notations. What is an Es or As chord?

h22
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4 Answers4

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Is this handwritten or printed? Is the notation of German origin? In German, the notes E flat and A flat are called Es and As.

dennisdeems
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    While "-is" is the suffix used for sharp (i. e. C sharp is Cis in German), flat translates to either "-es" (Ces for C flat) or "-s" for other cases, like Es and As. Also, B is called H in German - while the German B corresponds to English B flat. – david.mihola Oct 31 '14 at 22:00
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    @david.mihola - the flat in German for A and E is 's'. Strange that there are Ces, Des, and Ges only. C flat being B, but in German that's B. B flat is just B. Confusing, if you're not German... I need to know where on the stave the H line or space is !! – Tim Oct 31 '14 at 22:20
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    It's not just Germany, but some other European countries too (see [this answer](http://music.stackexchange.com/a/6664)). For us, the B/Bb system is the confusing one. – molnarm Nov 01 '14 at 11:36
  • It is handwritten but looks much more like Es than like E5. – h22 Nov 01 '14 at 14:10
  • @Tim: Didn't you forget *Fes*? – O. R. Mapper Nov 02 '14 at 09:47
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    @AudriusMeškauskas: Then why is the the answer that suggests it means *E5* the accepted one? – O. R. Mapper Nov 02 '14 at 09:50
  • @O.R.Mapper - no, as my source has no mention of 'Fes'. F flat doesn't feature in many keys, whilst obviously it exists.Good last point ! – Tim Nov 02 '14 at 10:03
  • @Tim And we even have Ceses, Deses, Eses, Feses, Geses, Asas, and Heses (rarely called Bes) for the double flats. Most of them are of course beyond rare, as you know. – Christopher Creutzig Nov 02 '14 at 19:55
  • These are not notes, these are chords as the notations appear next to other very obvious chords like Cm. – h22 Jan 26 '15 at 07:47
  • Except a few very special cases, chords are named for their root note. "Es" identifies the pitch of e-flat, but also the major triad whose root is e-flat. The presence of a C minor chord is entirely consistent with this interpretation. – dennisdeems Jan 26 '15 at 16:21
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Could it maybe be German (or Dutch)? Because in this case it would mean Eb and Ab (i.e. E flat and A flat). And in this case 'Es' would refer to an Eb major triad, and 'As' refers to an Ab major triad.

Matt L.
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    c.f. this list of key names in different languages http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/music/keylang.htm – Dave Nov 02 '14 at 16:16
  • I think so. Indonesia seems to have picked it up from Dutch, and the examples you mentioned above are true for Indonesia as well. – mey Jan 26 '15 at 02:46
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After doing a little bit of digging, I found a source* that uses the s instead of the full sus symbol to notate a suspended chord. They always put the number next to it, but a sus alone indicates a sus4 so I would imagine that they would be equivalent. I would still like to see the context just to be sure but I think it is pretty likely.

* I don't really like or agree with a good chunk of the notation that this page uses, but shows the possibility of a sus being notated that way.

Dom
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I agree that it's probably a sus4 chord, but if it's hand-written, could the "s" possibly be a "5" and it's a power chord? Only other kind of far-out thought...

Ian Temple
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