Triads
Three notes stacked in thirds. There are exactly four ways to do it, and between them they account for most of the harmony you have ever heard.
- 3 notes
- 1 3 5
- four kinds
which styles use it
Every style on this site
In short
A triad is three notes stacked in thirds: a root, a note two scale steps above it, and another two steps above that. Which thirds you stack decides the type. Major and minor differ by one half step in the middle, and diminished and augmented move the top note as well. Learn these four and every other chord is one of them with something added.
A triad is the smallest sound that still counts as harmony. Two notes leave the question open, and the third note answers it.
How to build it
- Start from the scale
Pick any note of a scale, skip one, take the next, skip one, take the next. That is a triad built on that degree, and it stays inside the key automatically.
- Change the middle note for the mood
A major third below the fifth gives a bright chord and a minor third gives a dark one. This one note carries more emotional weight than any other in the chord.
- Move the fifth for the extremes
Lower it and you get a diminished triad that will not sit still. Raise it and you get an augmented triad that floats. Both are unstable, in opposite directions.
Where you run into this
- Every guitar chord shape you learn as a beginner is a triad, often with notes doubled.
- Every hymn, choir arrangement and string pad is triads moving against each other.
- Every seventh chord, ninth chord and altered monster in a jazz chart has a triad at its core.
The four side by side
Same root, same key, only the stacking changes:
- C major, bright and settled
- C minor, dark and settled
- C diminished, squeezed and restless
- C augmented, stretched and floating