What Classifies A Chord As Major Or Minor
Answer: There is just 1 note difference between a Major and Minor chord. The 3rd.
Question: The 3rd what?
Answer: “The 3rd note from the scale that the chord comes from. All major and minor chords are only made of 3 notes. These notes are taken from a scale” – Anonymous
A Longer Explanation.
A Major Chord
The A Major Scale has the following notes (why? I’ll explain in a different post)
A B C# D E F# G#
Chords are made of the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the scale.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| A | B | C# | D | E | F# | G# |
Those 3 notes when played on a guitar look like this
And it sounds happy.
A Minor Chord
The A Minor Scale has the following notes (why? I’ll explain in a different post)
A B C D E F G
As we know, chords are made of the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the scale.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G |
Those 3 notes when played on a guitar look like this
And it sounds sad. Incredible how 1 teeny notes difference can affect the whole feeling behind a chord!
Question: Do I need to know all my scales to learn my chords?
Answer: Hell no, you don’t need to know any of them. Just learn all the major and minor chords, 1 or two at a time, within the context of learning a song.
Learning theory always opens more questions to more theory! And all of it is incredibly interesting.
2 Responses
Sorry, me again. Just a friendly suggestion to update the short answer to something like this:
“The 3rd note from the scale that the chord comes from. All major and minor chords are only made of 3 notes. These notes are taken from a scale”.
A beginner who doesn’t read past the short answer to where you explain full might get confused!
Great site btw :)
Thanks!