Lesson 2 Triads and Chord Construction

So what are chords and how are they built? Chords are fundamentally made up of triads, which consist of three intervals or notes derived from the major scale. They consist of two intervals each with a relationship to the tonic note or the 1st degree of the major scale. Those relationships determine whether the triad is major, minor, augmented or diminished. There are four primary triads, which can be thought of as the basic building blocks for more complex chords. There are thousands of songs constructed with major and minor chords so we will focus our attention on those.

A major triad consists of the 1st 3rd & 5th degrees of the major scale. Therefore, the notes of a C major triad are C, E and G, simply selected from the C major scale.

When playing an open C chord, we are merely doubling up on the core triad notes. The note C is played twice with the 3rd finger on the 3rd fret of the 5th string and the 1st finger on the 2nd fret B string. There are two 3rd intervals E on the D string 2nd fret and the open E 1st string. And one 5th interval which is the open G 3rd string.

To understand how other chords are built in the key of C major we have to move to another root note. For example if we want to understand how the chord A minor is built we have to analyse the A major scale.

That’s not to hard to get your head around if you keep in mind how all major scales are built and the step sequence of a major scale. We covered that in the chapter “The Mother of All Scales” and step sequence:  T T S T T T S.

The notes in an A Major scale are as follows:

  • A 1st
  • B 2nd
  • C#3rd
  • D 4th
  • E 5th
  • F# 6th
  • G# 7th
  • A 8th

To build the A minor chord (triad)

  • Take the 1st which is the note A
  • Take the 3rd note C# BUT we have to flatten it by a half step which gives us the note C
  • Take the note E which is the 5th. 

So the spelling for a minor triad is 1 b3 5th – and like the C major open chord we are doubling up on notes

Lets look at how an A major chord is built – We simply take the 1st 2nd and 3rd just like we did with the C major chord

The chords C and A minor have a strong relationship – they are all built off notes from the C Major scale. When we get to the chapter on diatonic harmony we will stay focused on the key of C major to avoid any confusion and really build your confidence in the mechanics of onr key.

I was at first confused by this “moving around keys” to establish chord notes , but don’t worry,  sometimes things just fall into place and I promise you will have that lightbulb moment when it all makes sense.