Neuroscientists have discovered that Western adults and children tend to associate major chords with feelings of happiness, while minor chords tend to induce darker, sadder emotions in our brain’s emotional centers.
This means you can subtly alter any major chord with its relative minor chord by counting intervals between notes for a subtle shift in mood.
Major Triads
Major chords can be created easily by adding a third and fifth above the root, creating a very distinct sound from minor chords which only include one third and fourth above their roots.
C Major uses the Cmaj7 chord. In jazz notation, this chord can also be written as C9 to shorten notation and be easier on the eye.
Remembering the emotional associations associated with major and minor scales in our culture is essential. Though these two scales share similar notes, even one slight change to that second note can dramatically alter its effect on an entire piece.
Practice distinguishing major and minor chords by listening only to their roots and third until you can do it effortlessly, then easily build triads from any chord shape on the fretboard.
Minor Triads
Minor chords often sound dark, compelling and sad. Used often as the tonic chord in blues progressions and can also be interspersed with major chords as desired, they owe their distinct sound to dissonance between minor 3rd and major 2nd of their tonic chord that gives this chord its soulful, smoky qualities.
To create a minor triad, just play the root note of the scale, lower its third by half step and add a perfect fifth above it – it couldn’t be simpler!
Minor triads consist of three successively “stacked” thirds that can be identified by counting the number of semitones between their first two notes – this process is known as enharmonic equivalence – while you can also use this approach to identify minor chords by their root note. Once you understand all three types of minor triads, simply altering root notes and shifting patterns around to form any minor chord you desire!
Minor Sevenths
By shifting down both third and seventh by half steps, a minor seventh chord is formed. This results in a darker, muted sound which makes for a great progression used frequently in minor songs like Gotye’s “Someone That I Used To Know”, where its chorus begins with an A minor chord before progressing through E and D minor for dramatic build-up.
One important distinction to keep in mind between minor seventh chord and major sixth chord is their shared source, the major scale. They only differ in that the minor seventh has an open 7th note while major sixth has a sharped seventh note.
Maintaining this pattern will make identifying minor chords and understanding their corresponding scales much simpler, while learning how to recognize these chords by Roman numerals is also invaluable to any musician.
Dominant Sevenths
Major chords provide the emotional foundation of any song, often reflecting feelings such as happiness, sadness, weirdness or danger. Each emotion corresponds with specific types of chords: for instance “happy” can refer to major chords while sadness might point towards minor or even augmented chords.
A dominant seventh chord is constructed by adding the seventh degree of the minor scale to a major triad, hence it being notated as Cmaj7, CM7, or even simply C7.
Dominant sevenths typically resolve to major triads via voice-leading, in which the first degree of the chord (such as G# in this example) ascends a half step towards its root chord. This makes them extremely popular among jazz musicians whose chord progressions often utilize this form.