Major and Minor Chords

Major chords

Before we start learning how to find the right chords for your melody, we need to make sure we know how to play major and minor chords built on any note, or, in music theory terms, major and minor triad. We'll start from the major chords.

Press a “C” button below to see what a major chord on C looks like. It uses keys C, E, and G:

Try pressing C, E, G on the keyboard individually to feel the distance between them, and then hear how they play together in a chord.

We call this a “C major chord”, and when we annotate a melody with chords, we'll just write “C” when we want to say “C major”. Since it has 3 notes, we can also call it a “C major triad”.

On a piano, we call a distance between two adjacent keys a “half step” or a “semitone”. A major chord, or a major triad, has three notes in it: the second note is 4 half steps away from the first one, and the third note is 3 half steps away from the second note. So, it's a note, 4 half steps, a note, 3 half steps, a note.

In the C major chord, the distance between C and E is 4 half steps (check it on the keyboard!), and between E and G there are 3 half steps.

On a guitar, the adjacent frets are exactly a half step apart. Guitar has no white keys or black keys!

Now, we can start counting from any other note, not just from C. For example, here's the “G major” chord, played on G note:

Same logic: 4 half steps between G and B, and 3 half steps between B and D. Again: play the individual keys to hear them, and then play the chord together using the button.

Sometimes, when you are building a chord, you might land on a black key, e.g. here's the “D major” chord:

Counting 4 half steps from D, we get to the black key, F♯. Then 3 half steps to the right from F♯ is the white key A.

You can see that all major chords sound similar. When kids are taught chords, teachers might say that major chords are “happy” and “bright”.

There is also some physics and some math behind this topic, but we'll talk about it much, much later.

Practice

Now try practicing: build major chords on A, E (one black key in each), F (no black keys), and B (two black keys). Try playing it on the keyboard first, and then use the buttons to check.

Whenever you feel comfortable playing major chords on any note–well, on white keys at least–move on to the next chapter!

Minor chords

If we move the middle note of a major chord one half step to the left, we'll get a minor chord. The “C minor” chord has E♭ (= D♯) instead of natural E. When we write chords, we'll write “C minor” as Cm. Here is how it sounds:

You can compare the two chords, C major and C minor:

Since the minor chord has its middle note one half step to the left of where the major chord's middle note is, the minor chord or a minor triad is built this way: a note, 3 half steps, a note, 4 half steps, a note.

Depending on the note where you start, all three notes might as well be on white keys. Look at Am (“A minor”) which has A, C, and E:

Do the same thing as you did with major chords: play each note individually, then use the button to play them all together to remember how they sound.

When teaching kids, teachers might say that minor chords are “sad”, compared to the “happy” major chords. The difference is just one half step!

Practice

Now, for practice, play minor chords Fm, Gm (these will have one black key), Dm, Em (no black keys), and Bm (one black key). Use the chord buttons to check if you got it right!

Now that you know how to play major and minor chords, we can keep going!