Guide to Chord Formation : Triads

Guide to Chord Formation by Howard Wright (Howard@jmdl.com)
Chapter 3 : Triads

3.0 : Triads

These are the basic building blocks of chords. A triad is a group of 3 notes and determines the basic sound of a chord.

E.g. If the chord is a minor chord, it will be based on a minor triad.
If the chord is major, it will be based on a major triad.

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3.1 : Major and Minor Triads

The major and minor triads are made up from these notes:
    1^st 3^rd 5^th
but remember - use a minor 3^rd for the minor triad, and the major 3^rd for the major triad.

A list of all major and minor triads is given at the end of this FAQ (Appendix B). If you want to learn them, it makes life easier, but it's easy enough to just count up in semitones from the root note to get the notes for any triad you're interested in.

The only difference between a major chord and a major triad is that a chord will usually have more than 3 notes, so you just double up on some of them. The root (1^st) is most likely to be doubled, but you can double up on the 1^st, 3^rd or 5^th, although you will get subtly different sounds.

Take C major for example.

C major triad = 1^st, major 3^rd, 5^th = C E G

Everybody knows this chord:

    EADGBE
    x32010

      C

If we look at the notes, we see it has:
(low to high): C E G C E
Which is the same as: 1^st 3^rd 5^th 1^st 3^rd.
So here the 1^st and 3^rd have been doubled.

Remember that the root note must always be the lowest note of the chord. If you want to have the 3^rd or 5^th at the bottom of the chord, you have to write it as C/E or C/G meaning a C chord with an E (or G) bass.
See section 7.0 for more details on X/Y type chords.

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3.2 : Suspended Triads

The thing to remember here is that the 3^rd has been replaced with another note - either the 2^nd or the 4^th.

So whereas with major and minor triads you have the 3^rd to give the 'flavour' of the chord (i.e. major or minor), with suspended triads you have no 3^rd, so the chord is neither major nor minor.
A suspended 4^th triad would be: 1^st 4^th 5^th
A suspended 2^nd triad would be: 1^st 2^nd 5^th

As with major and minor chords, you just double up on notes to go from the triad to the chord.

But - you almost never double the 'suspended' note - you usually only double the 1^st or 5^th.

So take Asus4 as our example.

Asus4 triad is: 1^st 4^th 5^th = A D E
The shape is:

    EADGBE
    x02230

    Asus4

The spelling for this is:
(low to high): A E A D E       (1^st 5^th 1^st 4^th 5^th)

So here the 1^st and 5^th appear twice in the chord, with just one 4^th.

So now I've covered major and minor chords, suspended 2^nd and suspended 4^th chords.

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Guide to Chord Formation by Howard Wright
Reformatted and noded (with permission) by Space Butler
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