Recognizing major and minor chords is integral to understanding music in general. They represent some of the most fundamental and versatile chords available, creating emotions such as joy or sorrow with ease.
A major chord, commonly referred to as a triad, consists of three notes stacked atop one another: its root note, major third and perfect fifth notes.
Root Note
A chord is composed of any three or more notes combined together in harmony. While you can build chords using any key note within it, in order to form major chords you require the first, third and fifth notes from each scale’s scale.
Triads are composed of three notes that form an interval from their root note. If the chord’s root note is C, for instance, E and G would serve as its third and fifth notes respectively.
As each note in a major chord is one semitone higher than its predecessor, we can count this up and determine that a major chord consists of three intervals – one major, one minor and one perfect. Therefore, when learning root notes for a scale or scales you should start by learning major chords because these are most frequently found.
Third Note
The third note in a major chord is one and a half steps higher than its root note in any key, regardless of how you start counting up semitone steps (the smallest on piano keyboard). To find it, begin from root note and count four semi-tone steps up (this method applies across any key).
Major chords are incredibly prevalent in pop and rock music, creating a lively sounding major triad.
Minor chords differ slightly from major ones in their construction; they use all of the same notes but inverted; keeping their root constant but switching their third and fifth intervals around so the minor interval is at the bottom while major intervals appear above. Understanding this concept allows you to construct more advanced chords, opening up many musical avenues.
Fifth Note
Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals, you should move on to more intricate piano chords. Like their major counterparts, these include triads consisting of the initial note of a scale followed by its third interval and fifth intervals.
The key difference between major and minor chords lies in their third intervals – specifically half steps lower for minor chords.
To form a minor triad, start with the root note and add its flattened third note and perfect fifth; as in C minor you would play 1-b3- 5 to achieve this chord structure. Our free chord chart shows this formula. An effective way of memorizing this structure is counting the number of semitones between each note.
Major Third
Major chords are made up of the first, third and fifth intervals from a scale. Understanding these intervals will help you learn other chords more efficiently in the future.
Example of C Major Chord
To create a minor chord, start by starting with the same triad but lowering one of its middle notes. This lowers its sound and makes it less upbeat; minor chords add a pensive and moody quality to music, and can even be played throughout entire songs or progressions!
Minor Third
Minor thirds, or the interval between the third and fifth notes of a major chord, are an interval that spans from E to G on any scale. Over time, you will become aware that their names reference back to their root note – making it easy to recognise when an E-G interval belongs to a major chord because its root note is C!
Next step is combining these three notes into a chord. To do this, simply play the first note of your scale along with its flatted third and fifth notes a half step lower; this creates the C minor chord: 1-b3-5; this pattern mirrors that used in C major chord, thus permitting you to utilize similar finger patterns for both.