If you’re a songwriter just starting out, you’ve likely heard plenty about how chords are the backbone of any song. But have you ever wondered where they come from?
In today’s article, I am going to break down exactly what chords are, where they come from as well as some of their common functions. My aim is to arm you with all the gloriously nerdy know-how so you can get the absolute most out of these powerful creative tools at your disposal.
Behind the insights
I’m a producer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and music educator with over 15 years of experience in the music industry.
As a professional songwriter, I’ve self-published numerous solo projects and collaborated with artists ranging from Ill Nino to Sir Christopher Lee. I’ve also worked as a freelance songwriter for companies such as Songfinch and Songlorious.
Why is it important to understand how to build chords?
Perhaps you have said this to yourself (or are thinking it right about now). True, it’s not necessarily considered the sexiest topic when it comes to the wider world of music but before shriveling away from this read, let me offer an analogy.
Ever been to a foreign country before? Imagine you’re setting foot into an unfamiliar city for the first time and you don’t speak the language. That whole “fear of the unknown” thing going on in the back of your head is anxiety inducing enough, but now imagine you forgot your map of the city at home on top of everything else?
How relaxed do you think you would be walking those city streets? I think I’ve made my point yeah? It’s way less nerve-racking if you have a map and know how to speak the language in order to communicate and ultimately, navigate confidently.
It’s the exact same thing with music. Understanding a little bit of music theory (which is in essence, documentation of what the components of music are in written form i.e. what music is made of) will give you a deeper comprehension of how music as a whole, works (the language).
This deeper understanding will give you more confidence to explore and experiment when it comes time to write your own songs. You’ll be much more willing to take creative risks and if a “wrong turn” occurs, you’ll have your “map” to navigate into familiar territory once again.
Make sense? Anyway, let’s get to it.
So, what is a chord anyway?
In a nutshell, a chord is two or more notes that sound good together. That’s it.
Chords as a whole take on a myriad of different forms, sounds and shapes, so to keep things digestible, let’s take a look at a few basic examples.
1. Dyads
The most stripped down and straightforward of the bunch, dyads are chords that are made up of just two notes.
There are a variety of dyads one can use but just to keep things simple for today, I’m going to talk about the kind that are commonly referred to in the guitar playing community as “power chords.”
How to build a root/fifth dyad (power chord)
Power chords are made up of the root note (1) and a perfect fifth (5) which can be found in any natural major scale (among others that also contain a root and fifth).
In other words, if you take the first note and the fifth note from any scale and play them together, you now have a root/fifth dyad (power chord).
Because power chords omit the naturally occurring 3rd found in triads (more on that in a bit), these particular dyads are neither major nor minor and make for easy song creation.
These little powerhouses are found all over rock, punk, metal, pop and any genre that calls for a thicker, more “neutral” sound due to their ease of use.
Here’s an example of an A5 power chord:
- Root note: A
- Perfect fifth: E
When these two notes are played simultaneously, they fit nicely together.
Listen to an example here:
Another way to think of that is that they sound in harmony with each other, i.e. they harmonize with each other. Make sense?
Also worth mentioning is that there are additional dyads that live outside the typical root/fifth pairings, but we can go into that at another time.
Let’s move on to more notes, shall we?
2. Triads
Arguably the most popular chord types found in contemporary music, triads are made up of three notes and take many different forms whether it’s your standard campfire chords or the more ambitious three-stringed inversion shapes spanning across the neck of a guitar or the length of a piano.
Triads are found in genres ranging from folk and country to rock, pop, and every permutation there of.
Because of his usage of three notes, the tonality of each cord can vary depending on its construction, so this require a bit more explanation.
In the context of traditional diatonic harmony of major scales, there are three types of triads found within. Each with different corresponding moods.
- Major (happy)
- Minor (sad, melancholy)
- Diminished (tense, scary)
Here’s an example of an A major triad:
- Root note: A
- Major third: C#
- Perfect fifth: E
Listen to an example here:
Here’s an example of an A minor triad:
- Root note: A
- Minor third: C
- Perfect fifth: E
Listen to an example here:
Here’s an example of an A diminished triad:
- Root note: A
- Minor third: C
- Diminished fifth: Eb
Listen to an example here:
How to build a major triad
A simple way to think about how major triads are made is to start by spelling out a major scale. For example, let’s build an A major triad by first spelling out an A major scale.
(1) A – (2) B – (3) C# – (4) D – (5) E – (6) F# – (7) – G#
The way this chord is created is by harmonizing the scale in thirds. What this means is we take the root note of “A” and count up three notes in the scale (including the root) to build our chord.
(1) A – (2) B – (3) C# – (4) D – (5) E – (6) F# – (7) – G#
As you can see, by starting from the root note of A, you are required to skip B to find the third (C#).
From there, you start from C#, skip D to find E (the fifth). Voila! You’ve got an A major triad consisting of A, C#, and E.
This skipping formula is applied in the same way to find minor and diminished triads naturally occurring in a major key.
If we keep things in the key of A and apply this to finding a B minor triad for instance, it would look like this:
(1) A – (2) B – (3) C# – (4) D – (5) E – (6) F# – (7) – G#
As you can see, the “B” in this A major scale becomes the root note of this new chord and the skipping process is applied once more. Jumping over C# to find D and then jumping from D to find F#.
Make sense? See if you can apply this formula to finding a G# diminished triad in the key of A major now.
Moving on…
3. Seventh chords
Building upon the standard triad shapes, seventh chords use four notes instead of three and are built by adding the seventh note of a scale on top of the aforementioned root, third and fifth (more on that in a second).
These types of chords are widely found in genres ranging from blues to jazz and whatever style that calls for something smokey, jangly or even ominous at times.
In the context of traditional diatonic harmony of major scales, there are four types of seventh chords found within. Each with different corresponding moods.
- Major seventh (dreamlike)
- Minor seventh(smooth, sad)
- Dominant seventh (jazzy)
- Minor seventh flat five (tense)
- Diminished seventh (super-tense)
Listen to all examples here:
How to build a seventh chord
Here’s an example of an A major seventh chord:
- Root note: A
- Major third: C#
- Perfect fifth: E
- Major seventh: G#
A great source to find all of these notes in the same place would once again be the A major scale.
(1) A – (2) B – (3) C# – (4) D – (5) E – (6) F# – (7) G#
Here’s an example of an A minor seventh chord:
- Root note: A
- Minor third: C
- Perfect fifth: E
- Minor seventh: G
A great source to find all of these notes in the same place would be an A minor scale.
(1) A – (2) B – (b3) C – (4) D – (5) E – (b6) F – (b7) G
Here’s are two examples of an A diminished seventh chord:
A minor seventh flat five
- Root note: A
- Minor third: C
- Diminished fifth: Eb
- Minor Seventh: G
A great source to find all of these notes in the same place would be an A locrian scale.
(1) A – (b2) Bb – (b3) C – (4) D – (5) Eb – (b6) F – (b7) G
A diminished seventh
- Root note: A
- Minor third: C
- Diminished fifth: Eb
- Double Flat Seventh: F#
Instead of thinking about what scale comes from, an easier way to go about it is by taking a standard diminished triad 1 – b3 – b5 and adding what’s known as a “double flat seventh” which looks like this bb7.
Another way to think about that bb7 in more relatable terms would be to consider it at a major sixth (6).
Let’s get practical
Now that you have a basic understanding of how chords are made, the next step in my opinion is to learn where to find them all in one place.
In the accompanying article, I go into great detail into how to take what we’ve learned here today and apply it to not only learning how to figure out what all the chords are in a given key, but also what groups of chords work well in different combinations. These are referred to as chord progressions.
Thanks for reading!
