Estimated reading time 3 minutes
Table of Contents
Introduction
What’s a major chord? It’s a fundamental harmony that’s at the core of Western music theory. Keep reading to learn how to build happy major chords.
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How to Build Major Chords: What Is It?
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A major chord is a collection of notes that is usually played altogether at the same time.
There are many types of chords, but specifically, the major chord is a triad, which means that it has three-notes.
- The notes of the triad are the root, the third, and the fifth.
- The root is the note for which the chord is named. For example, the root of a C major triad is C.
- The third is three notes above the root (e.g., E in a C triad), and the fifth is five notes above the root (e.g., G in a C triad).
In addition, the major triad has a bright quality, which is interpreted to be “happy” in Western music. This is typically contrasted with minor triads, which have a dark, “sad” sound.
How to Build Major Chords: How Is It Constructed?
The major chord is built using intervals.
- An interval is a distance in music, and each interval is built with half-steps.
- If you were to look only at the white keys on the piano, chords are built three notes apart (called thirds) so that you skip every other white key.
- However, if you add in the black keys, you’d need to start measuring the triads using half-steps. A half-step is the distance from any key to the very next key moving up (to the right on the keyboard) or down (moving to the left on the keyboard) regardless of whether the key is black or white.
For example, the C major triad contains the notes C E G (see the keyboard below).
- As I said above, the third (E) of the triad is called that because you’d count up three white keys from the root note (C). However, if you count all the half-steps between the root and the third of the chord, you’d find that the third is four half-steps above the root. This is called a major (or big) third.
- Alternatively, the interval of a third between E and G is called a minor third (minor means small) because it only has three half-steps.
- Similarly, the perfect fifth in the triad has seven half-steps (on the keyboard diagram you’d count seven half-steps between the C and G).
All major triads are constructed using this pattern of intervals. In addition, we can mix up the order of the notes by inverting the chord.
How to Build Major Chords: List of Major Chords
There’re twelve major chords (listed using versions that don’t have double flats, double sharps, or white key flats or sharps):
- C = C E G
- Db = Db F Ab
- D = D F# A
- Eb = Eb G Bb
- E = E G# B
- F = F A C
- F# = F# A# C#
- Gb = Gb Bb Db (contains the same keys as F#)
- G = G B D
- Ab = Ab C Eb
- A = A C# E
- Bb = Bb D F
- B = B D# F#
- C = C E G
Looking at the keyboard below, you’ll see that all the triads listed above have the same interval structure as the C major triad in the previous section.
For more information on chords:
Final Thoughts
Takeaway points:
- The major chord is a triad, which means that it’s a three-note chord.
- In addition, it has a bright quality, which is interpreted to be “happy” in Western music.
- This is typically contrasted with minor triads, which have a dark, “sad” sound.
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