What makes chords

Another name for this is the quality of the chord. Major is one type of chord quality, as is minor. Each chord quality has its own distinct sound. Some will sound happy, some will sound sad, and others will sound mysterious. Learning these different chord types will make writing chord progressions easier. There are 9 common chord qualities that you should be aware of. You may have heard of a few of these, while others may be foreign. Each section will contain an explanation of the mood of a chord, instruction on how to build it, an audio clip of how it sounds, and an image of the chord on a piano roll.

As you can see, we start counting the half steps from the note above the last one. Minor chords follow the same pattern as major chords except the middle note is down a half step.

Although they seem almost identical, the difference is significant. Listen to the audio clip below, which will play a C Major chord followed by a C Minor chord. Listen for how the tone of the chords differ. One way to remember the different chord formulas is to memorize the intervals between the notes in the chord. For a minor chord, you start with the root, move up 3 semitones to the minor third, then move up another 4 semitones 7 semitones from the root to the the perfect fifth.

Thus, the formula for a minor chord is: Similarly, we can represent the formula for building a major chord as If this clears things up, it can be a handy tool. Major seventh chords are considered to be thoughtful, soft. Another way to think about major seventh chords is they are a major triad i. The C Major Seventh chord has a distinct character and tone. Minor seventh chords are considered to be moody, or contemplative. For example, below is a C major scale.

The notes of a C major chord are the 1st the root note , 3rd, and 5th notes, which are C the root note , E and G. Notice that the octave the 8th note is also part of the chord. In fact, either of the notes C, E and G can be played in any octave on the guitar and it will still be called a C major chord.

Otherwise, in order to find notes of other major chords, learn the notes in those scales and apply the formula to the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of those major scales. To learn more about chords, browse Fender Play's chord library, discover other chord types, and find tips on how to master them. Jazz musicians often start with the seventh chords, and add the extended chords over time. Blues musicians often learn the dominant 9 chord right away. Meanwhile, Rock and Pop styles use them occasionally, but you can go a long time without learning them.

You will notice that the extended chords build upon the seventh chords in the same way that the seventh chords built upon the triads. You will notice that the dominant 13 chord has 7 notes when the guitar only has 6 strings.

Some notes will be omitted when you play this chord by yourself, but another band member may play the notes that you omit. These rules are useful because they tell you the important notes for each chord quality! You can also form almost any chord with these rules. Tip: Jazz musicians often focus on the 3rd and 7th of the chord.

They are important chord tones that you can highlight when improvising. The following modifier rules will help you modify them to learn almost all the rest. At this point, some teachers would instruct you to memorize several chords or stop here and let you learn chords as you need them to play a song.

In this section, I will reveal some simple rules that teach you how most guitar chords are constructed. It will help you think faster and play thoughtfully with specific notes in mind.

Chords on the piano are often played in an orderly fashion. In other words, the lowest note is the root, the next pitch is the 3rd, followed by 5th. This order, however, is not required. Actually, guitarists rarely play the notes in this order because it is hard to grip them unless you change the order. The first grip keeps the notes in order like a pianist would play it.

The second grip changes the order of the notes to make it easier to play on the guitar. In standard tuning, playing chords like a pianist is impractical, so guitarists usually play different voicings. In guitar terms, voicings are different grips for the same chord. In more precise terms, a voicing determines the order of the notes along with which notes are doubled. Chord voicings that change the order of the notes are often called inversions. For example, your base triad is R The first inversion of this chord orders the notes as R.

The second inversion would order the notes as 5-R This lesson will not teach you several inversions of chords, but it is good to know. You can derive several chord grips by trying to find all the combinations. I will explore this in a future lesson, but I will give you some practical advice on forming chords with easier grips in the next couple of sections..

The great grip problem exists because we use standard tuning, which means that our guitar is tuned in perfect fourths except between the 2nd and 3rd string where the interval is a major third.

You learned earlier that chords are built in thirds or that they skipped notes. When you want to play a third on the next string, you need to move to a lower fret almost every time. As you add thirds, the grip becomes harder and harder. For example, R to 3 spans 2 frets. When you add the 5th, the chord spans 4 frets. When you add the flatted seventh, the chord spans 6 frets.

It is hard to stretch your fingers across 6 frets. Chords are built in thirds which force you to move to lower frets on each string. We need to find a way to move forward!

The key to constructing great chords is to alternate between notes that move you up and down the fretboard. So far, we know that thirds move us backward, but what moves us forward? It is simply a higher interval, and the next chord tone after the third is the fifth.

The diagram below shows the root note and the notes on the next higher string. Notice how the thirds move you back but the fifth moves you forward. The dividing line between moving backwards and forward is what I call the 45 divide.

I named it that way because of how it helps you find notes from a chord formula. The note on the same fret as the root note but on adjacent higher string is a perfect fourth.

The note on the same fret as the root note but on the adjacent lower string is a perfect fifth for chord formula purposes. Since it is a fourth one way and a fifth the other, I call it the 45 divide. For example, sus4 chords contain a root, perfect fourth, and perfect fifth. Csus4 contains C root , F 4th , and G 5th. If you play C on the 3rd fret of the 5th string. You will find an F on the 3rd fret of the 4th string and a G on the 3rd fret of the 6th string.

Notice how you can find E-form and G-form chords in the following diagram. There are other diagrams that are rooted on different strings and correspond to the other CAGED forms.

Notice how the following chords all start with the root note, then the 5th, repeat the root, then play the third. This is a very common pattern in guitar chords. I label this form RR 5 - R.

Optional notes are shown in parentheses. The C and G form both play with the root, 3rd, 5th, then repeat the root. They use the same pattern: R R - 3 - R. Once again, optional notes are in parentheses. Like the The C and G Form share the same interval pattern.

They simply start on a different string. We can easily modify these chords to form seventh chords! Usually, this is done by modifying doubled notes or the fifth, which is sometimes omitted.

Extended chords are usually formed by modifying a doubled note or one that we consciously omit. Below are examples of a dominant 9 and a dominant 13 chord. We try to modify doubled notes first, but often we have to make a compromise. Usually it is using the following rules. You will notice that the following rules apply to almost all guitar chords when switching from a lower pitched string to a higher pitched string.

Everything you learned in this lesson was intended to give you intuition and simplify the many rules. Regardless, it is still a lot of information. Here are some practicing recommendations.

I recommend using the rule. In a given week or 7-day span , practice 3 exercises at least 3 days. Continue practicing until you truly learn the chords. As you modify chords, listen for the differences in the chord sounds. Also, look at the differences in the grips. The goal is to learn the notes you are playing.

Ironically, learning chord construction helped me improvise better. I was able to understand the notes that I was playing. It helped me link melody to harmony effectively. It truly broke a rut for me, and it can do the same for you.

I am planning several new lessons that expand on this lesson. My Drop-2 chords lesson is a good follow-up lesson because it covers several combinations of chords. This was a huge lesson. If you read this far, you must be a future guitar hero, but I want to thank you for reading it.

I truly hope it helps you improve. If you liked this lesson, please consider buying the PDF version to support content like this. Alternatively, the biggest thanks I can get is for you to like my facebook page and leave a post with what you liked about it.

As always, feel free to contact me with your questions, concerns, etc. I am here to help! Thank you for the kind words. I am glad that you found it useful, and I hope to continue to provide insights for readers like you.