![]() In the diagrams below, we’ll show you keyboard versions of the chords built from the scale degrees of C major, and also miniature versions from five other common major scales: D, E, F, G, and A. The second chord in the C major scale, built up from the not D, is a minor chord, and it will be a minor chord for every other major scale. It will also be a major chord if we’re in the G major scale, the A major scale, the B major scale, or any other major scale. For example, the first chord in C major, built up from the note C, is a major chord. It’s important to note that the types of chords built on each scale degree will be the same for every major scale. Let’s look at all seven of the chords that can be built on the scale degrees of the major scale on the keyboard. Pop music, rock, and jazz all use forms of music notation that feature nothing but these chord symbols and the song melody. It’s a very important part of how we find and use chords in songs.īy the way, the abbreviated versions of the chord labels below the names in the diagram above are called chord symbols when seen in music. This happens because the size of the skips is naturally different between the scale degrees. Notice the labels on these chords even though we’re only playing white notes, we have different types of chords going up the scale. All you have to do to play these chords is to find the bottom note (called the root ) and play two skips up in white notes. These chords are all built using only the white notes of the C major scale. Remember, we build chords by stacking 3rds, so if we stack two 3rds on each of the scale degrees of the major scale, we get a total of seven chord options:ĭon’t worry if you can’t really read the notes - we’re going to look at them all on the keyboard in just a moment. Using scale degrees gives us a clear set of options for which chords we can build. To help us understand this, we’ll refer to the notes of the scale as scale degrees, which are named using numbers up from the first (bottom) note: In many cases, the only chords a song will use are those based on the notes of the scale. The scale is also used to determine which chords get used for the song. ![]() For example, a song using the C major scale will typically have a melody that uses the notes of the C major scale. Many songs use one or two scales to determine what kinds of notes they contain. Want to know more about combining different types of 3rds to get different chords? Check out this more detailed article from our, What are Keys? article series. ![]() Playing these notes will give you the more somber sound of minor. On the piano, this means that we have to move the middle note down one half-step, to the black note Eb: To get a minor chord, we flip the 3rds, so that the minor 3rd is on the bottom, and the major 3rd is on top. If you play these notes together, you’ll hear the characteristic, “happy” sound of major.Īnother type of chord we regularly see is the minor chord. Let’s look at a C major chord on the piano: If we stack a minor 3rd on top of a major 3rd (thinking of the left side of the piano as down, and the right side as up), we get a basic major chord. For this article, we’ll refer to triads simply as chords. The technical name for the most basic, three-note chords is triad. We stack different types of 3rds to get different types of chords. We have two kinds of 3rds: major and minor: Chords on the piano are built in 3rds (also known as skips ).
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