Any musician comes across chords whether they realize it or not. Chords are some of the building blocks of harmony, and they make up pretty much every song you’ll ever hear or play.
In part one of this series on chords, we will start with the basics: major triads and minor triads.
First things first: let’s define triad.
WHAT IS A TRIAD?
A triad can be thought of as the simplest type of a chord; it is simply a set of three notes stacked on top of one another. These notes are separated by intervals: either major or minor thirds.
How we organize these thirds will determine whether a triad (and in turn, a chord) is major or minor. The first third above the root (the lowest note in a chord) determines the chord quality (major or minor).
CREATE A MAJOR TRIAD
We create a major triad or major chord taking some root note, say C, and then moving up a major third, followed by a minor third (or a perfect 5th from the root). A perfect fifth is simply a major third plus a minor third above a root note, (or the 5th note in a major or minor scale).
The interval of the major third is two whole steps, so if we want to create a C major chord, we have C as our root, then we move up two whole steps to our major third, E, for our second note in the chord.
From there, we can think of adding the final note in two different ways: either move up a minor third from the E or move up a perfect 5th from our root, C.
A minor third consists of a whole step plus a half step (as opposed to two whole steps in a major third), so if we want to move up a minor third from E, we move a whole step up to F#, then a half step to our last note in the chord, G. (And yes, moving up a perfect 5th from C also lands you on G!)
CREATE A MINOR TRIAD
We make a minor triad or minor chord in much the same way as a major triad, except the thirds are reversed. This means, instead of moving up a major third from your root note (let’s stick with C), we first move up a minor third, and then we add a major third on top of that (or a perfect fifth above the root) to complete the chord.
Remember, a minor third is a whole step plus a half step. So if we start on C, we move up to E-flat as opposed to the E natural in the major triad we discussed above. From there, we move up a major third to reach our last note, G.
THE FIRST THIRD DETERMINES CHORD QUALITY
If we look at the notes that make up a C major triad (C-E-G) versus the notes that make up a C minor triad (C-E flat-G), we can see that it is the first third (the second note in the triad) that determines whether we have a major triad or minor triad.
Did you notice that the top note, G, did not change? Good eye! This is important to know and saves time when constructing chords.
Stay tuned for much more discussion on the many different types of chords and how we make them.
