No matter if you’re an intermediate pianist or advanced musician, chords are the building blocks of music. From creating harmony within a song to invoking emotion through various sounds, chords are at the foundation of every note played on the piano or other musical instrument.
Major chords consist of three notes stacked one on top of another in succession, separated by four half steps or intervals (intervals) from the root to third and three semitones between third and fifth notes.
Root Note
As is well-known, chords consist of three or more notes played simultaneously, but when viewing a chord chart you will observe that these same notes can take on different qualities depending on how far apart they are placed.
Root note of G major is G, remaining its base note throughout all inversions of the chord. Major third is four half steps above it while perfect fifth extends seven half steps further beyond.
Root notes of chords are important because they help identify their type. Minor chords have a distinctive sound from major ones, especially when diminished or augmented; using these in songs adds texture. Chord charts make it simple to locate these types of chords by usually showing them followed by “dim” or a circle with plus sign (aug), making them easily distinguishable from other notes on a piano keyboard.
Third Note
Major triad chords consist of three notes stacked upon one another and each has its own specific sound that helps define or “tonalize” the overall feeling or tonality of the chord.
A major chord’s third note is equally essential, as its role defines how many half steps stand between that note and its following counterpart. A perfect fifth exists between each pair of notes within a major chord; thus it must always have four half steps between its notes.
To locate an E note on a piano keyboard, count four black keys right and place your finger there.
As we shall explore further on in this lesson, when choosing your top note you must count three piano keys down until reaching G. This is because chords in F minor have an intricate relationship with those found in A major, which will be covered more thoroughly later.
Fifth Note
Chords can be divided into chord families, with major chords being the most frequently encountered ones. As you get familiar with major chords, they will become part of your piano repertoire and serve as an entryway into more advanced techniques and chord variations.
Major chords consist of stacking notes in a specific order and are separated by intervals, such as those between C major triad’s C, E and G notes arranged vertically as shown by this chord chart below. However, they still form one chord without changing its compositional qualities.
Noting the interval between C and E as being a minor third. Furthermore, G and B represent another minor third interval. Any major triad can easily be inverted by shifting its lowest note up or down a semitone – meaning any major triad can become its inversion with only minor modifications required to its lowest note.
Intervals
Interval is the distance between two notes in a chord; for instance, in a major chord the notes C, E and G are separated by a perfect fifth (the distance from C to E on a piano keyboard is 5 half steps).
Intervals have both a number and quality. This quality determines whether an interval is major or minor; only second-, third-, sixth- and seventh-order intervals exhibit major characteristics; all others can either be minor, augmented, or diminished in intensity.
To ascertain an interval’s quality, start by counting the letter names between its bottom and top notes. Next, imagine where each note falls in its respective major scale before asking yourself whether its distance exceeds or equals a perfect fifth from its counterpart.
This method works for all chords – major and minor alike! To put this technique into action, download Skoove’s free chart of major chords for the piano – it will help you discover optimal fingering for every chord!