You can play chords on piano and guitar. But what are they?
In sandwich terms, they are the butter. Chords are a collection of notes, played simultaneously. Chords are like a scale, but the notes are played at the same time instead of one by one and you have to organize them a bit. This means that each chord has a scale that goes with it, because the chord is created from a scale. Chords provide harmony, the minor, major, dominant, diminished and other pieces, that set the scene of a story for our ears to follow. Chords are directions, signs, mood setters for emotion in the music, like the set of a play. Musicians play chords to create the “set” for a story that they want to tell (which is the melody, lyrics, etc.)
Chords are built from scales. Take every second note in a scale, play them together, and you have a chord. You can also build chords from the modes of a scale. Mode is a term for playing the scale, but starting on a different note of that scale. For example: playing C major but starting on G, and playing until the G an octave above. (Same scale, but different vibe because your ear hears this as relating to G instead of C).
We can make different chords, and many chords begin with the same template, a 3-note chord called a triad. 4 different types of triads exist: Major, Minor, Diminished and Augmented. Major means we take a major scale, start on the first note and add the 3rd note in the scale and the 5th note in the scale. It is major because we used the major scale, which means that this triad chord has a MAJOR 3rd , and is written using only the root note, for example C. If we use a minor scale (natural minor in this case) and do the same, play the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the scale, we would get a minor chord, because we used a minor scale. This means that the triad chord has a MINOR 3rd , and is written Cm or C-.
An augmented chord starts like a major triad, it uses the 1st and 3rd notes of a major scale, but the 5th note… is raised by a half step (which means play a note a half step above the one you would play). This augmentation is what gives the chord its name. (There is a scale that this chord comes from, but let us skip over it for now.) The chord is written C+. The diminished chord starts like a minor triad, it uses the 1st and 3rd notes of a minor scale, but the 5th note, this time, is lowered by a half step. This diminution is what gives the chord its name, and there is a scale, with the same name, that it comes from, but do not worry for now. The chord is written C° or Cdim.
We can continue building each triad chord by adding more notes from the scales, to give us new colours. Let us take a major chord, and follow the scale note skipping pattern. By skipping the note after the 5th that we already have, we get a 7th. Now we have the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th! And because we used the major scale, the 7th is a major 7th interval. (If you want more information on intervals, click here). The chord we have created is called a major 7th chord, written as CMaj7, C∆7. And now the same process with a minor chord. We skip one note after the 5th and we get the 7th. In the minor scale (natural) the 7th is minor. Now we have 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th. The chord we have created is called a minor 7th chord, written as Cm7/C-7 or Cmin7. These four note chords are also known as 7th chords.
Another 7th chord we need to discuss is the dominant 7th chord. The dominant 7th is a chord that has a major triad plus a minor 7th. What is the scale of this chord? Well, this chord is built from a mode of the major scale, the 5th mode that is called Mixolydian. If we are in C Major, we would use the G Mixolydian scale to build the G dominant chord. We take the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th notes of G mixolydian (GBDF) to create the G dominant 7th chord, written as G7.
We can keep building the chords, to include the 9th, 11th and 13th in the same way. Let us add a 9th to the G dominant chord to make G9. It’s already in the name, 9th, now we just have to find this note… there are only eight notes in an octave, so where is the ninth? If we just continue counting, it seems like the 9th is A. That is right! We use the number 9 instead of 2 to make it clear that we are implying all of the other parts of the chord including the 7th. A quick trick to figure out these higher number notes is to subtract 7 from them (so that we know what number the note is in the scale, by subtracting the octave). For example: 9-7=2 so the note we are adding is the same as the 2nd note of the scale, which is A.
We can do this process with each chord and scale to add other extensions, the 9th, 11th and 13th notes of the chord.
There are some things to mention about augmented and diminished chords, that will be discussed in another article. For now, let us review:
A triad is a 3-note chord, 1, 3, 5 of the mode the chord is from.
A major triad has an interval of a Major 3rd between the root and the third (mode degree). The interval between the root and the fifth (mode degree) is a Perfect 5th. Example: C
A minor triad has an interval of a Minor 3rd between the root and the third. The interval between the root and the fifth is a Perfect 5th. Example: C-/Cmin/Cm
An augmented triad has an interval of a Major 3rd between the root and the third. The interval between the root and fifth is an Augmented 5th. Example: C+
A diminished triad has an interval of a Minor 3rd between the root and the third. The interval between the root and fifth is a Diminished 5th. Example: C°/Cdim
***notice how the symbols -,+, min, maj, etc specify information about the TRIAD. This is important when we start adding the 7th to chords. Below you will notice that the symbols still only apply to the triad part of the chord, and the quality of the 7th is implied by the scale that the chord comes from. ***
A 7th chord is a 4-note chord 1,3,5,7 of the mode the chord is from.
A major 7th chord has an interval of a Major 3rd between the root and the third. The interval between the root and the fifth is a Perfect 5th. And the interval between the root and the 7th is a major 7th. Example: C∆7/Cmaj7/CM7
A minor 7th chord has an interval of a minor 3rd between the root and the third. The interval between the root and the fifth is a Perfect 5th. And the interval between the root and the 7th is a minor7th. Example: C-7/Cmin7Cm7
A dominant 7th chord has an interval of a Major 3rd between the root and the third. The interval between the root and the fifth is a Perfect 5th. And the interval between the root and the 7th is a minor 7th. Example: C7
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