Learning guitar chords is an invaluable asset when creating songs and musical pieces. Triads provide the core building block, with only three notes comprising each chord triad.
Major and minor chords add the next level to your music with their happy or sad qualities, creating the foundation of any piece.
Chords may be challenging to play cleanly when first learning how to play an instrument, so be sure to use a safe hand position and apply just enough pressure when playing chords.
Triads
Triads are among the simplest chords in music and serve as an essential building block of tonal music. Composed of three notes stacked vertically one space apart on the staff, with the bottom note known as its root; middle note known as third; and top note known as fifth.
Triad chords are extremely versatile and straightforward to play on guitar, making them perfect for adding harmony or creating emotions in music – such as major triads being traditionally associated with being relaxing and cheerful, while minor ones evoking sadness or fear.
Triads, like intervals, come in different qualities; major and minor triads tend to be consonant while diminished and augmented ones can be dissonant. Most guitar chords do not contain pure triads but instead utilize doubled versions or multiple octaves of these to produce fuller tones.
Major Chords
Major chords are an easy place to begin because they’re straightforward. These chords consist of the Root, Major Third and Fifth notes and most sound their most balanced when played in ROOT position. If a chord moves higher by more than one semitone (ie above one note a second above its root) then it typically becomes a minor chord and should be named accordingly.
Triads are chords consisting of more than three pitches, typically made up of the first, third and fifth scale degrees in your key signature.
Some chords can be extended by adding a ninth, eleventh or thirteenth note; these chords are known as sus (meaning suspended) chords such as Asus2 and Csus4. Sus4 chords feature three identical notes – root, perfect fourth and perfect fifth – but their lower note has been swapped out with a seventh note to create tension within the chord.
Minor Chords
Minor chords often have a melancholic, dissonant sound to them, making them suitable for use in popular genres like rock, blues and jazz. Their usage may also depend on cultural factors; positive emotions are typically associated with major chords while negative ones with minor ones.
As its sonic qualities depend on the intervals it contains, creating a minor triad requires starting with its root note, then moving upward to find three half steps lower minor third and then an perfect fifth note.
This means that each root note is followed by two minor notes and five (which represents the fifth scale degree). As shown here, this triad consists of A minor, C minor and E minor chords – great starting points for learning minor chords as they serve as the backbone for numerous songs and musical styles.
Barre Chords
Barre chords may seem intimidating at first, but with enough practice they become second nature. The curved line on a chord diagram represents the bar, in this instance your index finger spanning all six strings. If playing only two or three strings at a time then the term half-barre is applied instead.
Named chords come from using your index finger to ‘barre’ strings across multiple frets – similar to using a capo to shorten strings – with multiple frets barred off with one finger barres (similar to how capos shorten the strings), these shapes can be moved up and down the neck for various minor and major chords as well as combined with open chord shapes for unique sounds – for instance an E shape barred at 2nd fret produces Dm while moving it to 5th fret produces D Major.