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Guitar Chords
How Are Guitar Chords Constructed?
Guitar chords (not spelled cords) are a combination of notes. A single note would be classified as a melody. As soon as we have two notes we have a chord. The smallest chord that we commonly play on the guitar is the “Power Chord”. The power chord is a two note chord comprised of a root note and a second note played an interval of a fifth higher. This guitar chord is very common in rock and pop music.Most of the chords that we commonly play are either triadic chords or chords based on triads.
Triads
Triad means three and in this case, triads refer to chords that are comprised of three notes.
There are four types of triads: Major, Minor, Augmented and Diminished
Although we call these chords triads, it is not necessarily true that we only play three notes, as any of the notes can be doubled.
The notes for the triad chords are derived from the major scale. The rules are as follows:
- Major: 1st – 3rd – 5th note of major scale
- Minor: 1st – lowered 3rd – 5th note of major scale
- Diminished: 1st – lowered 3rd – lowered 5th note of major scale
- Augmented: 1st – 3rd – raised 5th note of major scale
As an example, let’s create some triads from the D Major Scale: D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#, D
D triads would consist of the following notes:
- D Major: D – F# – A
- D Minor: D – F – A
- D Diminished: D – F – Ab
- D Augmented: D – F# – A#
Let’s examine a D chord as we play it on the guitar:
Starting from the 4th string we are playing the following notes: D, A, D, F#
So, you can see that this follows the pattern for the major chord. Although we are playing four notes, there are only three unique notes and they are all derived from our major chord pattern. Let’s try a minor chord. Here is a D minor chord:
Starting from the 4th string we are playing the following notes: D, A, D, F
As you can see, it is not complicated to figure out the notes is any guitar chord. You only need to know how to create major scales and the formulas for the various chords.
