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Thanks to everyone that took time to fill in the survey posted last week...

The survey is still there for those that missed it. It would really help us out if you gave us some feedback via that survey.

One of the items that several people mentioned was to complement our Scale of the Week with a Chord of the Week.

Hey, it sounded good to us, so here we go!

Chord of the Week

There is no chord this week!

But we do have a small tiny piece of theory for you to think about as we move into the chords next week.

Triads

There are four categories of chords, each of which is built around just three notes. We call those three notes a Triad.

The four categories of chords are comprised of a root note (R), a third note that (3) and a fifth note (5).

Before you ask "what is a third note and what is a fifth note", I'll tell you!

For any chord, we're going to use the Major scale to find our Root, Third and Fifth. To find those notes, start your major scale pattern on the root choice. Next, play up to the third note. That is the third for our chord. Finally, play up to the fifth note. That is our fifth note of our chord.

If you do not know the major scale, it follows this step pattern:

Root - Whole Step - Whole Step - Half Step - Whole Step - Whole Step - Whole Step - Half Step

Example in C: C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C
                         R - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - R

With that understanding, the four Triad categories are:

Major Triads: Root, Third, Fifth
Minor Triads: Root, flat Third, Fifth
Diminished Triads: Root, flat Third, Flat Fifth
Augmented Triads: Root, Third, Sharp Fifth

Examples in C

C Major Triad: C E G
C Minor Triad: C Eb G (here, we moved the E down 1/2 step to Eb - hence, flat third)
C Diminished Triad: C Eb Gb (here, we moved both E and G down 1/2 step for a flat third and flat fifth)
C Augmented Triad: C E G# (here, we raised the fifth to G#, hence sharp fifth)

There you go, Triads in a nutshell (peanut sized this go 'round).

All of the chords we will cover in the Chord of the Week will be based on one of these four triads. The notes we add beyond the fifth will simply add some flavor to our chord jambalaya.

See you next week with our first Chord of the Week!







guitar guitar lessons chords scales chord of the week scale of the week triads major minor augmented diminished