Chords
A chord is when 3 notesA simple 3 note chord is called a triad.
or more are played at the same time. The 1st note of the chord is the root note and the distance between the notes gives the chord its overall sound. You probably already know that there are several different types of chords, such as: Major, minor, dominant and suspended chords. Each has it's own unique sound
and there are many more types than are listed there.In this reference guide we'll look at where chords come from, how they differ from each other and how the notes within the chord change it's sound.
Chords from Scales
The notes that create the chords for a key come from the scale of that key. Each note in the scale can be considered the starting point or root note for one of the chords. If we were using the key of C Major the root notes of the chords would be:C | D | E | F | G | A | B |
To find the next note of each of the chords we would then count along 3 notes from the root note including the root note as one so:
C | D | E | F | G | A | B |
1 | 2 | 3 |
If we repeat this step from the E in our chord:
C | D | E | F | G | A | B |
1 | 2 | 3 |
Later we will talk about adding a 4th note into our chord and extending it.
This process can be repeated for each of the notes in our scale and we would end up with:
G | A | B | C | D | E | F |
E | F | G | A | B | C | D |
C | D | E | F | G | A | B |
Our first step of turning a scale into chords is done. The next step will be to figure out which chords we have.
Chord Construction
At this point we need to look at chords that we know already and work out a numeric formula for each different type. To do this just follow these steps:- Play a known chord e.g. C Major
- Write down all of the notes in the chord, starting from the root note – C E G C E
- If you have more than one of the same note in the chord you can ignore the extra ones – C E G
C E - Next, make sure the notes are in alphabetical order starting from the root note.
In our case ( C E G ) the notes are already in alphabetical order but some guitar chord shapes have the notes in a different order which would affect the subsequent steps of this process.
- Find out where each of these notes lies in the appropriate scale:
1 3 5 C E G
If you apply this formula to any key it will always work out the appropriate notes for a Major chord. Test this out with a different key then compare it to a known Major chord in that key. First work out the 1st 3rd and 5th notes of the scale in, say, G then check these notes against all of the notes in an open G Major chord.
Different chords
If we follow the same system as above to work out a minor chord's formula we can then compare it with the Major chord’s formula and see the difference between the two.- Play a known minor chord (this doesn’t have to be the same key as the chord above) – A minor
- Write down the notes of the chord starting from the root note – A E A C E
- Remove the doubled notes – A E
ACE - Place the notes in alphabetical order from the root note – A C E
- At this point it is worth pointing out that it is usually easiest to still use the Major scale even though our chord isn’t a Major chord; the reason for this is that as we work out the notes of our chord we may find that the note we’re looking for isn’t in the Major scale and so we have to alter the scale note to make our chord note fit. It’s as we alter the scale note that we see how to alter the formula's number (this will make sense in a minute when we do the next steps)
Find the position of the notes in the same key -A C E 1 b3 5
Now that we have two different chord's formulae we can compare them –
Major | ||
1 | 3 | 5 |
minor | ||
1 | b3 | 5 |
We can now see that the only difference between a Major chord and a minor chord is the 3 – if it’s flat the chord is minor if it’s natural
Remember natural just means the note is normal and has not been sharpened or flattened
the chord is Major.The system from above can be applied to all chords to work out their formulae. Luckily for you I’ve already compiled a list of the most popular chords:
Chord Formulae Dictionary
Chord Name | example | Chord Formulae | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Major | A | A Maj | 1 | 3 | 5 | |||
Major 7th | AM7 | A Maj7 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | ||
Major 9th | AM9 | A Maj9 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | |
minor | Am | 1 | b3 | 5 | |||
minor 7th | Am7 | 1 | b3 | 5 | b7 | ||
minor 9th | Am9 | 1 | b3 | 5 | b7 | 9 | |
Dominant 7th | A7 | 1 | 3 | 5 | b7 | ||
Dominant 9th | A9 | 1 | 3 | 5 | b7 | 9 | |
Dominant 11th | A11 | 1 | 3 | 5 | b7 | 9 | 11 |
Dominant 13th | A13 | 1 | 3 | 5 | b7 | 9 | 13 |
Suspended 4th | Asus4 | 1 | 4 | 5 | |||
Suspended 2nd | Asus2 | 1 | 2 | 5 | |||
7th Suspended 4th | A7sus4 | 1 | 4 | 5 | b7 | ||
Diminished 7th | A° | Adim7 | 1 | b3 | b5 | bb7 | ||
Half Diminished 7th | A1/2dim7 | Am7b5 | 1 | b3 | b5 | b7 | ||
6th | A 6 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 6 | ||
Minor 6th | Am6 | 1 | b3 | 5 | 6 | ||
Added chords | Aadd9 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 9 | ||
Amadd11 | 1 | b3 | 5 | 11 |
Revisiting Chords From Scales
Now that we have our formulae above we can look again at the chords we found when we used the Major scale to create our chords.G | A | B | C | D | E | F |
E | F | G | A | B | C | D |
C | D | E | F | G | A | B |
If we take the time to work out what each chord is we would have a chord system for the Major scale in general; this would be very useful as it would tell us which chords are available for any key.
We already know CEG is a Major chord (and this makes sense since it's taken from the C Major Scale).
To find out the rest of the chords we just follow the same system from the Chord Construction section above. Remember to always figure out the formula for the chord in it's own key i.e. DFA should be found from the Major scale in D; EGB should be found from the Major scale in E etc.
Once we have done this for each chord we would have all of the formulae
C | E | G |
1 | 3 | 5 |
D | F | A |
1 | b3 | 5 |
E | G | B |
1 | b3 | 5 |
F | A | C |
1 | 3 | 5 |
G | B | D |
1 | 3 | 5 |
A | C | E |
1 | b3 | 5 |
B | D | A |
1 | b3 | b5 |
- C is a Major chord
- D is a minor chord
- E is a minor chord
- F is a Major chord
- G is a Major chord
- A is a minor chord
- B is a diminished triad
In this case none of the formula above match exactly as we need 4 notes to make a diminished or half diminished chord. However with a b5 note and b3 note gives us the triad for making a diminished chord.
We can now use this sequence of chords for all Major keys:
I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Major | minor | minor | Major | Major | minor | diminished |
Notice that we use Roman numerals when referring to the numbers of notes in scales especially when referring to chords as part of scales. I'll switch back to normal numbers to make it easier to read when working out the chord's notes.
As an example of this chord system in use we could take another key; let's use G Major:
G | A | B | C | D | E | F# |
Major | minor | minor | Major | Major | minor | diminished |
I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII |
You could go through the chords from scales process above to check that the system works, or you could take my word for it, it's up to you.
What does this really mean? How does it help you? Well now if you were ever wondering what chords would sound good together to make your own song or how songwriters know which chords work together, there's how. Try playing them in different combinations to see what works.
Extending Chords
At the beginning I mentioned that you can extend chords by following the same system as above. Let's do that now to see what happens:B | C | D | E | F | G | A |
G | A | B | C | D | E | F |
E | F | G | A | B | C | D |
C | D | E | F | G | A | B |
Now using the appropriate scale for each chord we find out where each note lies:
- The C chord has the notes: 1 3 5 7 - so look in the dictionary and we see that means our chord is a CMajor7
- The D chord has 1 b3 5 b7 - this means the chord is a Dminor7
- The E chord has 1 b3 5 b7 - so it's E minor 7
- The F chord is 1 3 5 7 - so FMajor7
- The G chord is 1 3 5 b7 - this is different
All of the other Major chords turn into Major 7s but this one (the 5th chord) becomes a dominant chord. Although the dominant chords are based on a Major triad (1 3 5) they have a b7 note. This chord plays an important role in chord progressions.and is a dominant 7.
- The A chord has the 1 b3 5 b7 notes and so is another minor 7th
- The B chord has 1 b3 b5 b7 notes so this is a half diminished chord, looking at our list another name for it is minor 7 flat 5!
I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Maj7 | min7 | min7 | Maj7 | Dominant 7 | min7 | 1/2dim7 |
Something to bear in mind is that all of these chords are included in the same key so in G you'd have G Major and GMaj7, E minor and E min7 and so on.