Major chords add an upbeat element to any song – such as this Beach Boys classic which relies solely on them to tell its tale of sunny days and teenage dreams.
A major chord consists of three notes, the root, the major third and perfect fifth. Music built on major scales tends to sound brighter and happier while those using minor scales often create darker and melancholic compositions.
Major Triads
Major key chords form when three or more notes are played together to form a triad. A basic major chord comprises three notes: root, major third and perfect fifth; the latter three being separated by steps above them in pitch order from root to major third and perfect fifth respectively.
Music notation often shows these notes represented by C, E and G letters; this triad forms the primary major chord in C major. Other triads may be built up using each of the scale degrees found within any major key.
Jazz musicians typically indicate major chords by writing either M or the Arabic number two with a minus sign (m). Some chords also use + or aug to indicate they are being amplified; for instance, major seventh chords consist of major thirds and perfect fifths with an added sixth note.
Minor Triads
Minor chords are any three note chord composed of the first, flattened (lowered), third, and fifth notes from any minor scale they correspond with. This straightforward definition makes it clear why major chords tend to sound brighter and happier while their counterpart minor keys tend to feel darker and more troubled than their major counterparts.
Minor triads differ from major chords by not possessing a perfect fifth. You can tell them apart simply by playing them and counting up from their root note: C, E and G are major; B, D and F are minor.
Some songs utilize both minor and major chords to create a melancholic atmosphere, with minor key chords such as IV v creating an introspective, melancholy feeling often associated with sadness or vulnerability. Because these chords tap directly into human emotion, musicians and composers wishing to convey certain emotional qualities frequently use minor chords in their work.
Major Keys
Major keys each contain an unique set of sharps or flats which define their sound. A key signature indicates which notes will be sharp or flat in a piece of music and can be found at the beginning of every staff line.
C Major is the only major key that does not contain any sharps or flats; therefore, it symbolizes triumph and can often be found in marches, religious or holiday songs written in this key. Conversely, D Major contains four sharps in its scale of notes consisting of D, E, F-sharp G A B C sharp and C sharp; it provides an energetic sound.
When a key signature contains flats, its tonic is determined by the second-to-last flat in its signature. Bb Major features three flats in its scale – B-flat, A-flat and D-flat – making it a discontented key that expresses feelings of frustration with life circumstances, helplessness in situations and the certainty of death.
Minor Keys
Minor chords and progressions have the power to give songs an added layer of emotional depth. Many listeners to Western-style music (most of the genres that originated in Europe) find chord progressions in minor keys especially powerful in conjuring feelings of sorrow or melancholy.
A minor key scale features the same set of intervals as its major equivalent, yet starts on an unrelated note. As a result, its sharps and flats differ from its major counterpart due to its start point being one half step below tonic note.
Finding the relative minor of any given key can be accomplished simply by counting back one minor third from its tonic or root, for example C major’s relative minor is A minor.