Chords

Building a chord

A chord is three or more notes played at the same time. The most common kind uses three notes: the root, the note a 3rd above it and the note a 5th above it. Musicians call that a triad.

The middle note decides the mood. If it’s 4 half steps above the root, you get a major chord, which sounds happy and bright. If it’s only 3 half steps up, you get a minor chord, which sounds sad or moody. Just one half step changes the whole feeling!

Try both on any root below and listen for the difference.

The chords in a key

If you build a chord on every note of a scale, using only notes from that scale, you get the chords that belong to that key. Musicians number them with Roman numerals: capital letters for major chords, small letters for minor.

Here’s a secret: a huge number of hit songs use just four of these chords, I, V, vi and IV. In C that’s C, G, Am and F. Tap them in that order in the chord buttons above. Sound familiar? Now try other orders and see what moods you can make.

Quick quiz