Add 2

Notes and formula

The formula is 1 – 2 – 3 – 5, or 0 – 2 – 4 – 7 in semitones from the root. A major triad with D wedged between the root and the third.

No seventh is present, and that absence is what separates the add family from the ninth chords. Cmaj9 contains B; Cadd2 does not, which is why the same added note sounds folk here and jazz there.

Add2 or add9

The two symbols describe the same four pitch classes. The distinction that careful writers observe is register: add2 places D within an octave of the root, add9 places it above the third or higher. Played on guitar the difference is real and audible; written in a lead sheet it often is not observed at all.

A practical reading: treat add2 as an instruction about voicing and add9 as the more common name for the chord in general. If a chart prints add2 and the shape under your hand puts the D on top, nothing has gone wrong.

How to play it

On guitar Cadd2 is x30010, sounding C–D–G–C–E. The open D string does the work, and the shape is one lifted finger away from an ordinary open C.

On piano the close voicing C–D–E–G is the one that earns the name — the second rubs against both neighbours, and that gentle friction is what the chord is for. Spreading the D upward turns the same notes into an add9 and removes the effect.

How it sounds

The chord is a major triad that has been unsettled without being made tense. Nothing in it needs to resolve, but the cluster at the bottom keeps it from sounding plain, and that combination is why it appears so often under sustained acoustic guitar.

Held long, it reads as atmosphere rather than harmony. Struck once inside a strummed pattern, it reads as a passing ornament of the major chord it came from.

Where you hear it

Acoustic pop, worship and film scoring use it constantly, usually as a way to keep a major chord ringing across several bars. Piano writing in the same idioms uses the close voicing deliberately, because the second is audible there in a way it is not on guitar.

It is uncommon in jazz for a straightforward reason: jazz voicings almost always include a seventh, and adding one turns the chord into a major ninth.

Scales that contain it

Ionian, Lydian and Mixolydian all fit, since the chord asks only for a major third, a perfect fifth and a natural second. The choice affects the melody, not the chord.

The major pentatonic contains every note of the chord and nothing else that can clash, which is why it is the safest scale over it and why so much of the writing that uses this chord stays inside five notes.

Frequently asked questions