Acquiring knowledge of major chords across all 12 keys is a necessary aspect of musical knowledge for any musician, alongside scales in all keys (and being aware of where differences arise between keys such as C# and Db, which may seem similar but don’t match), this is one of the most essential skills you can acquire.
Major Triads
Major triads are perhaps the most recognizable chord structure, consisting of the first, third and fifth notes from any scale. Commonly used across genres and providing an upbeat atmosphere when performed live music performances, major triads can add joy to music performance.
Quality in triads can be judged by its intervals from its root note, which can be identified using key signatures and enharmonic equivalence to ascertain. Chords named accordingly would include Dmaj3 for instance when there is major third and perfect fifth intervals within it.
Once you know this pattern, creating major chords on any piano note should be simple. Triads built upon Fa and Sol (1 and 4) are major chords; those on Do and Mi (2 and 3) are minor; and Ti (7) is diminished (shown with a superscript degree symbol). Doublings or open spacing may be used but the process remains the same.
Minor Triads
As soon as you’ve mastered major triads, they can also be used to form minor ones by simply replacing one third with a minor third. The quality will remain the same; all that changes is its sonic characteristics.
Triads can be distinguished from each other by the root note, the third note and perfect fifth. Together these notes define their sonic identity – whether major or minor chord.
To create a minor triad, simply replace the third with a minor third note and move all three notes up by one semitone – for instance C minor is easily achieved this way.
Dominant Seventh Chords
The dominant seventh chord is an unusual type of seventh chord that creates an exceptional kind of tension before offering resolution or cadence back towards its tonic chord. It is popularly used in blues music as well as most forms of contemporary Western music.
To create a dominant seventh chord, start with your chord’s root note and layer it with notes from the major scale stacked above it – typically this would include major 3rd, perfect 5th, and flat 7th notes from major scale. Don’t forget to use this technique when performing 1 4 5 progressions!
As you develop your knowledge of seventh chords, try to commit the sound to memory so you can easily identify it when encountering them in songs or blues progressions. This will enable you to play them quickly and fluidly without having to think too hard about which is the appropriate fretting hand position.
Minor Seventh Chords with an Added 7th
Minor seventh chords are tertian chords formed of stacks of major thirds and minor thirds that span four semitones, creating 7 different permutations, but only 5 are often heard in western music: minor, minor major, dominant diminished and half-diminished sevenths.
This chord features two tendency tones as opposed to just one for a major seventh chord, making it more dissonant. Like its dominant seventh counterpart, however, this chord wishes to resolve into its root chord by creating dissonance within itself and eventually moving towards resolution at root chord level.
To form a minor seventh chord, begin with a minor triad and lower its third note by half step; this will result in a C minor 7. To create a major seventh, change F and G to A (and add a flat 5). This notation style is how most jazz chords are written; practicing these two methods for building seventh chords will come in handy!