Major chords can convey joy, lightness and hope – whether that is evident in your music depends on its cultural associations with Western music.
Minor chords feature a unique sound that evokes sadness or melancholy feelings, making them ideal for creating melancholic or tragic emotions. Gain more knowledge on both types of chords as you learn how to switch between them seamlessly.
1. C Major Triad
No matter if you play bass, piano or saxophone – major triads will always serve as the building blocks of any key you find yourself playing in. They provide the easiest notes to play and are essential components to creating chord progressions on any instrument.
Every major scale note can form the basis of a triad, though do, re, and sol (1, 4, and 5) are considered major while mi, fa, la and o are minor and diminished respectively.
Triads come in all sorts of configurations. When one or both third and fifth are in the bass, it’s known as first inversion triad; when both appear simultaneously it is known as second inversion. You can invert any triad by moving its root up an octave until it sounds similar to its original form; Roman numerals make this process even simpler!
2. C Minor Triad
Minor chords create an eerie, mysterious or sad sound to songs, making them popularly used in popular music and often interspersed with major chords. P!nk’s Get the Party Started and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Run Through the Jungle are two popular examples that feature only minor chords while Adele’s Turning Tables and Jolene by Dolly Parton use both combinations together for added complexity.
Minor triads consist of the root, third, and fifth notes from the minor scale; also known as C minor chords or minor triads in fifth position.
Minor triads in C are comprised of C, Eb, and G; their chord symbol can either be an uppercase’m’ or sometimes roman numeral with a circle around it. If the lowest note in a chord does not correspond with scale root then an additional symbol for pitch class (diminished, major, perfect) needs to be added, as 1b35 can be written as their chord formula for such chords.
3. D Major Triad
A chord (or harmony) is any group of notes that play simultaneously, often three notes at once. Triads are the most frequently formed three-note chord, featuring specific interval qualities across all major keys.
Minor triads differ from major triads in that they use lowercase letters for this same purpose, which is more typical as they often act as inversions of chord forms.
To create a minor triad from the D major scale, we need to replace the third note with a flatted note and create an less stable chord by inserting dissonance between third and fifth notes of chord; this produces its characteristic sorrowful sound. You’ll often hear this type of chord at the end of musical phrases known as an ending or falling-over chord; its unfinished sound alerting listeners that this particular phrase will soon end and thus giving off that unfinished feeling.
4. D Minor Triad
D Minor is often associated with feelings of melancholy, darkness, and sorrow. Its usage spans various songs and genres – for instance Get the Party Started by P!nk uses only minor chords while Run Through the Jungle by Creedence Clearwater Revival and Jolene by Dolly Parton feature an array of major and minor chords in their compositions.
Diminished chords such as the D minor triad are known by their symbol, Ddim or Ddeg.
Just as with major triads, the D minor can also be inverted using inversions – this consists of shifting its root note up or down an octave – creating two new chords called Dm/F and Dm/A which you can play using the CAGED method.