What is a "Bes" chord?
Question: I have a piece of sheet music (Can't Help Falling In Love) written in the key of F. The music has the typical "fake sheet" style chord symbols above the appropriate notes. One of the chord symbols is "Bes". I have not been able to find the definition for the es symbol. Can you help? - Phil

Answer: Maybe. There's no such thing as an "es" chord in English, but there are programs that use "es" or "s" to indicate a flat when using typewritten characters. Probably they do that to avoid confusion between the note "b" and the use of the letter "b" as a flat symbol; "es" or "s" is the German abbreviation for "flat." So that is intended to be a Bb chord. I think it would be safer to write it as Bb. As you see, not every musician is going to know right off what "Bes" means.

Return to Q&A Index