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Chord Essentials

Resource Pack

Lesson 1: What Is a Chord?

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“A chord is a group of two or more notes played at the same time.”

Lesson 2: Some Basic Intervals

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There are many different types of intervals, but for the purpose of this course, you only need to learn two of them: Major 3rd & Minor 3rd

• To construct a major 3rd, play a note and count up 4 half steps. The note you land on is a major 3rd up from the starting note.

• To construct a minor 3rd, play a note and count up 3 half steps. The note

you land on is a minor 3rd up from the starting note.

Practice Tips Step 1: Start with major 3rds. Pick a random note and count up 4 half steps to work out the interval. Repeat this process until they start to become familiar. Step 2: Pick a random note. Try to visualize the interval. Play the two notes of the interval together. Repeat this process until they become familiar and you no longer have to think about it. Step 3: Repeat steps 1 and 2 with minor 3rds.

Examples of Major 3rds

Examples of Minor 3rds

Lesson 3: How To Play a Major Triad

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A triad is one of the most basic types of chord that exist. It is made up of 3 notes. A major triad may be written using any of the following notations:

To learn how to play major triads, we are going to use a method of ‘stacking 3rds’. In order to construct a major triad, you must stack a major 3rd, followed by a minor 3rd.

Practice Tips Pick random notes on the piano and build a major triad from each one using the ‘stack of 3rds’ method. You want to do this over and over until you begin to recognize some of them and they begin to feel a bit more familiar. Remember, since there are only 12 different notes on the piano, there are only 12 different major triads to learn.

C major C maj C

Root note Major 3rd Minor 3rd

Examples of Major Triads

(most common)

Lesson 4: The ‘4-Group’ Method (Major)

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The ‘4-Group’ method is a really handy trick to help you remember all 12 major triads. You may have noticed that many of the major chords have completely different shapes and look very different from one another.

The way this method works is by organizing the 12 major chords into separate 4 groups. Each group of chords all have the same shape, making it easy to learn a group at a time.

Group 1: C F G Group 2: A D E

Group 3: Ab Db Eb

Group 4: B Bb F# Practice Tips Task 1: Go through every group in order and play all 3 chords in each one. Repeat this over and over until you feel comfortable playing them without thinking too much. Task 2: Test your muscle memory by taking the chords out of sequence. Pick random notes and try to play the corresponding major triad straight away.

Lesson 5: How To Play a Minor Triad

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In this lesson, we are building upon what we have previously learned. We are going to learn how to play a minor triad. Once you have mastered both major and minor triads you will be able to learn a huge amount of songs, since so many songs are written just using major and minor triads. Similar to major triads, they are made up of 3 notes. A minor triad may be written using any of the following notations:

To learn how to play minor triads, we are going to use the method of ‘stacking 3rds’. In order to construct a minor triad, you must stack a minor 3rd, followed by a major 3rd.

Practice Tips Pick random notes on the piano and build a minor triad from each one using the ‘stack of 3rds’ method. You want to do this over and over until you begin to recognize some of them and they begin to feel a bit more familiar.

C minor Cm C-

Root note Minor 3rd Major 3rd

(most common)

Examples of Minor Triads

Lesson 6: The ‘4-Group’ Method (Minor)

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We are going to apply the ‘4-Group’ method to minor triads to help you remember them in all 12 keys. The idea behind this is exactly the same as when we did it previously with the major triads. There will be 4 separate groups, with each one having the same shape (except for the last group).

Group 1: Am Dm Em Group 2: Cm Fm Gm

Group 3: C#m F#m G#m

Group 4: Bm Bbm Ebm

Practice Tips Task 1: Go through every group in order and play all 3 chords in each one. Repeat this over and over until you feel comfortable playing them without thinking too much. Task 2: Test your muscle memory by taking the chords out of sequence. Pick random notes and try to play the corresponding major triad straight away.

Lesson 7: Diminished & Augmented Triads

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• Something we haven’t mentioned yet, is the fact there are actually 4 different types of triads: Major, Minor, Diminished & Augmented.

• It’s important to understand, in pop & rock music, a majority of the chords used are major and minor.

• Diminished and Augmented triads are much less common and don’t need quite as much attention when starting out.

Diminished Triads A diminished triad may be written using any of the following notations:

In order to construct a diminished triad, you must stack a minor 3rd, followed by another minor 3rd.

Augmented Triads An augmented triad may be written using any of the following notations:

In order to construct an augmented triad, you must stack a major 3rd, followed by another major 3rd.

C diminished Cdim Cº

Root note Minor 3rd Minor 3rd

C augmented Caug C+

Root note Major 3rd Major 3rd

Lesson 8: Some Essential Theory

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This lesson aims to give you an understanding of what a triad really is, and the theory behind how they are constructed.

• All chords are built from scales

• A major scale consists of 7 notes, we can give each note a number

• A triad is constructed using the 1st, 3rd & 5th degrees of the scale Using a C major triad as an example, this is how it would be constructed: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

C D E F G A B This same concept applies to every type of triad, including diminished and augmented. To construct a triad, you must use the corresponding scale. Eg.

• To construct a G minor triad, you must use the G natural minor scale. • To construct a Bb major triad, you must use the Bb major scale. • To construct a C# diminished triad, you must use the C# diminished scale • To construct an F augmented triad, you must use the F augmented scale

You might not know your natural minor, diminished or augmented scales yet, that is completely fine. You just need to understand this concept of how they are constructed. You can continue using the method of stacking thirds. Practice Tips Spend some time making sure you know which degree of the scale each note in the chord is.

Lesson 9: Chord Inversions

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A chord inversion is a way of playing the same chord, in a different position. Up to this point in the course we have been playing every chord in, what is known as, root position.

• The number of notes in a chord is equal to the number of possible inversions for that chord

• A chord is its root position has the 1st degree of the scale at the bottom

• A chord in its first inversion has the 3rd degree of the scale at the bottom

• A chord in its second inversions has the 5th degree of the scale at the bottom

Practice Tips Go through each chord and familiarise yourself with every inversion of each chord. You could go through the chords chromatically, use the ‘4-Group’ method or use the circle of fifths. It is far more important to master the inversions of major and minor triads, before moving on to diminished and augmented triads.

Root Position 1st Inversion 2nd Inversion

C M A J O R T R I A D

F M I N O R T R I A D

Root Position 1st Inversion 2nd Inversion

Lesson 10: Chord Progressions

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• A chord progression is a specific order, or progression, of chords. Most songs are made from chord progressions

• A major scale consists of 7 notes, each of which has a chord built from it

• The sequence of chords is the same for EVERY major scale

• Songs are written by taking any combination of the chords built from one of

the major scales.

• The ‘key’ of a song is the scale that the combination of chords has been built from

Using a C major scale as an example, the sequence of chords is as follows: I II III IV V VI VII

C D E F G A B Maj Min Min Maj Maj Min Dim

C H O R D P R O G R E S S I O N 1

C H O R D P R O G R E S S I O N 2

Lesson 11: Rhythmic Patterns

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It’s good to know some rhythmic patterns since it allows you to transform a chord progression into something more musical. Remember that you can apply these patterns to ANY chord progression, so make sure to practice and apply them to as many as possible to help internalize the rhythms.

Two-Handed Pattern 1

Two-Handed Pattern 2

Left-Handed Pattern 1

Left-Handed Pattern 2

Lesson 12: Suspended Chords

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• Sus is short for suspended

• The most common types of sus chords are sus2 & sus4

• When you see ‘sus’ with no number, this normally means sus4

• They are not major or minor, since they have no 3rd. They produce a very modern sounding chord.

• To play a sus chord, take the 3rd out, and replace it with the scale degree corresponding to the number after the sus.

• To get from a major chord to a sus4, simply raise the 3rd by a half step

• To get from a major chord to a sus2, simply flatten the 3rd by a whole step

Practice Tips Try experimenting with the previous chord progressions we learned by turning some of the chords into sus chords and see how it sounds. Also try experimenting with playing random sus chords, and resolving them to another chord (details in video).

C major Csus4 Csus2

A major Asus Asus2

Lesson 13-15: Major, Minor & Dominant 7th Chords

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• A 7th chord is made up of four notes, giving it a very rich and full sounding harmony

• They are constructed using the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th degrees of the scale

C major 7 Cmaj7 C^7

C minor 7 Cm7 C-7

C dominant 7 C7 Cdom7