(music) mes Major chords create a sound that is more “normal” and upbeat, in comparison with minor chords which tend to create darker and melancholic sounds that some may perceive as sadder.
To construct a minor chord, all that’s needed to form one is taking a major triad and shifting its third down one piano key, known as inversion.
Major Triad
The major chord is a keystone of all major scales and chords. Composed of three notes, its melody can be quite beautiful to play. To construct any major triad, start from your scale’s first note by adding its 3rd and 5th notes; these will then form consecutive thirds known as major triads; often written maj3, maj5, and maj9.
This classic 90s hit features simple major chords to bring hope and love to listeners. Music is all about patterns; once you understand the “rules”, creating varied songs will become second nature.
Major chords produce a bold sound due to containing both a major third at their core and an identical fifth on top, creating an iconic, “major sound.” Conversely, minor scales alter this process by flattening or “lowering” (as musicians say) thirds in order to produce minor scale sounds; hence triads played in minor keys are distinguishable from their major key counterparts.
Minor Triad
Minor chords are one of the fundamental building blocks of music and are widely employed across genres. Their basic formula is 1, flat 3, 5, which mirrors that of major scale, although an extra lowercase b is added to indicate that note 3 should be flattened by half step.
Root position minor triads are the most widely encountered form, typically composed of three notes with the lowest note representing its root, middle note as flat third, and highest note as perfect fifth – also written 5/3 on staff diagrams; they are sometimes known as A minor in root position.
The triad chord is the cornerstone of most musical forms and an essential building block to grasp for musicians. By manipulating its variations in tempo, chord progression, and tonality musicians can craft songs that elicit specific emotions such as sadness or suspense.
Minor Seventh
Minor seventh chords are among the most essential to master in jazz. We will study its underlying scale and discuss key qualities like stability, width, and tonal function of this chord in this lesson.
The minor 7th chord can be created using any minor key by combining its 1st, 3rd, 5th, and flat-7th tones of either harmonic or melodic minor scale into an easy chord that can be played across many styles of music, providing tension or creating movement within pieces of music. It has its roots in both harmonic minor scale and melodic minor scale – an adaptable chord suitable for various applications that can help bridge rhythmic transitions while creating tension within pieces of music.
This chord has a slightly dissonant sound due to the interval between its third and fifth tone. Yet despite this dissonance, it remains fairly stable; often seen as either an IV or VI chord in minor keys (just as major seventh chords can also be viewed this way in major keys). Gymnopedie No. 1 by Erik Satie contains one such example of such an intriguing composition containing this chord type.
Minor Dominant
The fifth scale degree of any minor key is known as the dominant and is second only in importance to its predecessor – the tonic.
As is often the case in music that involves improvisation and modulation, chords built on this degree tend to create tension that needs to be relieved with chords that resolve back to their tonic notes. This process is crucial when dealing with this form of chord structure.
Chords that build on this scale degree can have either a major or a minor tone depending on which minor chord they contain, with minor dominants comprising of a minor triad and minor seventh chord creating tension that needs to be resolved through resolution of tension within them.
Jazz musicians frequently opt for Natural Minor when creating V chords in a minor key, as its lower seventh scale makes forming major V chords more challenging than Natural Minor’s higher seventh scale.