MusicaLexica

In the last article I described four basic types of chords.  Now I’ll tell you my system for figuring out what notes go into a chord.

I started by memorizing the "cycle of thirds."  Chords are made by stacking thirds–in other words, by skipping notes.  It helps to memorize this list so that you can quickly get the first step of naming the notes in a chord:

A - C - E - G - B - D - F - A - C - ….

All I’m doing is skipping every other note.

With that in mind, you can name the letters that will be in any chord.  You’ll still have to figure out if the letter names need to be sharped/flatted, but you’ll have the right three notes.

So, an E chord will have E - G - B in it.  An F chord will have F - A - C.  A C# chord will have C# - E - G.

Now, to figure out whether to sharp or flat any notes.  There’s one more thing to memorize, and that is: what kinds of chords do you get if you make chords out of all the natural notes?

C - E - G	C major
D - F - A	D minor
E - G - B	E minor
F - A - C	F major
G - B - D	G major
A - C - E	A minor
B - D - F	B diminished

This pattern holds true no matter what key you are in: the first, fourth, and fifth chord you build will be major.  The second, third, and sixth chord you build will be minor, and the chord built on the seventh note will be diminished.  More about that in a future article.  For now, you can just memorize the pattern.

So, now you know how to build seven chords.  With that knowledge, we can build them all.

How do you make a D major chord?  D - F - A is D minor.  The difference between a minor chord and a major chord is that the third is lower in a minor chord.  We raise the third and get D - F# - A.

How do you make a G minor chord?  Lower the third of a G major chord: G - Bb - D.

How about an A augmented?  A minor is A - C - E.  A major is A - C# - E.  A augmented is A - C# - E# (raise the fifth of a major chord).

To make a B major chord: B diminished is B - D - F.  B minor is B - D - F#.  B major is B - D# - F#.

You now know how to make half of all the chords you can make.  Now what about chords that start on notes with a sharp or a flat?

To make a note of the same quality, just sharp (or flat) all the notes in the chord.  Db minor is Db - Fb - Ab.  A# minor is A# - C# - E#.

From there you can build whatever chord you want.  Since Db minor is Db - Fb - Ab, Db major is Db - F - Ab.  (If a note is flatted, you raise it a half-step by taking away the flat.)

A# major is A# - C## - E#.  C## is the same note as D, of course, but we stick with the notation of showing every other note so that it’s clear we’re making a major chord.

Now you can make any chord.  Some more examples:

Bb major: Bb - Db - Fb is a Bb diminished chord.  Raise the third and the fifth to make it a major chord: Bb - D - F.

G# minor: G# - B# - D# is a G# major chord, so G# - B - D# is G# minor.

B augmented: B - D - F is B diminished.  B - D - F# is B minor.  B - D# - F# is B major.  B - D# - F## is B augmented.