Minor goes on bottom, major goes on top, and the fifth goes in the same place. It puts the minor 3rd on the bottom, from root to third, and major 3rd on top from the third to the fifth. That’s all there is to it.Įxample of a Major Chord Symbol (C major chord): C Minor ChordsĪ minor chord is built like an upside-down major chord. For an E major chord, you’ll see a capital “E” above the staff. For a major chord, you’ll simply see the letter name of the root as a capital letter. Now, back to those letters above the musical staff. This is because their notes have the same relationship to each other. You can hear how each major chord has a similar sound. If you have your piano keyboard handy, see if you can play each major chord, one for each of the twelve tones. Your E-flat major chord is E-flat, G, B-flat. Count up four half steps to G, then three half steps to B-flat. Now say you want to start on a black key, such as E-flat. Then count up three more half steps from F-sharp, you get A. Count up four half steps from D, and you get F-sharp. This is how you build a major chord starting from ANY of the twelve tones of the chromatic scale. The top two notes of the chord, from the third to the 5th, will be three half steps apart, or a minor 3rd. Between the root and the third you will always have four half steps, an interval known as a major 3rd. This is because the number of half steps between each of the notes will always be the same. A major chord sounds like a major chord no matter what note it has for its root.
The fifth will be the fifth tone of the C major scale, or the G. The third is going to be the third tone of the C major scale, or an E. The C major chord, for example, will have a C as its root and lowest note. Major and minor chords are made up of three tones, called the root, the third, and the fifth. Ninety-nine percent of all popular music, and almost as much classical music, is built on these two kinds of chords and their variations. Most chords in modern-day Western music are either a major chord or a minor chord. When you make a chord, the distance, measured in half steps, between the tones of a chord determines what kind of chord it is.
As you go up the keyboard, twelve half steps will bring you right back to where you started in the sequence of tones. Each white or black key is included in the scale, and is a half step away from the keys next to it. These tones, called the chromatic scale, repeat as you go up the keyboard. The piano keyboard is made up of only twelve tones. So which notes do you play to make what chord? With eighty-eight keys on the piano, that makes an impossible number of combinations, right? Actually it’s simpler than that. Most simply put, if you play more than one note at a time you’ve got a chord.
THE BLACK KEYS NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP CHORDS HOW TO
In this article I’ll tell you how to make piano chords, how to read chord symbols, and lots of ways to use chords to make your piano playing more amazing than ever. But for folk, jazz, pop, and rock musicians, chords are the foundation of how they think about, play, and perform music. Although guitar players use chord symbols all the time, for many beginning piano students chords are a mysterious art. Have you ever seen those letters up above the staff in your sheet music and wondered what they are? Those letters are chord symbols.
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