Spell a chord's tones, in the chord's own (tertian) order, relative to a key.
Diatonic chords spell exactly (e.g. G7 in C major -> G B D F). Chromatic chord
tones take their conventional spelling; enharmonically ambiguous altered
tensions may be spelled by the general convention rather than by chord
function.
A chord carrying its own tone spellings is spelled by them, since a chord
whose letters do not follow from stacking thirds can say so no other way:
that is what keeps the German sixth of C major on its F#, the note that
resolves outward to the dominant, rather than the Gb a dominant seventh
would put there.
Spell a chord's tones, in the chord's own (tertian) order, relative to a key.
Diatonic chords spell exactly (e.g. G7 in C major -> G B D F). Chromatic chord tones take their conventional spelling; enharmonically ambiguous altered tensions may be spelled by the general convention rather than by chord function.
A chord carrying its own tone spellings is spelled by them, since a chord whose letters do not follow from stacking thirds can say so no other way: that is what keeps the German sixth of C major on its F#, the note that resolves outward to the dominant, rather than the Gb a dominant seventh would put there.