Working out Major and Minor Triads
Lesson 10 from: Music Theory Essentials: Chords, Scales and ModesTomas George
Working out Major and Minor Triads
Lesson 10 from: Music Theory Essentials: Chords, Scales and ModesTomas George
Lesson Info
10. Working out Major and Minor Triads
Lessons
Scales Introduction
03:08 2Working out a Major Scale
06:45 3Working out a Major Key from a Melody
05:51 4Major Keys and Scales
01:54 5Major Scale on a Score
02:56 6Triads
03:37 7Inversions
03:21 8Working out the Chords in a Major Scale
09:27Different Ways to Write out Chords
04:11 10Working out Major and Minor Triads
07:01 11Diminished and Augmented Triads
05:22 127th Chords
12:16 13Extended Chords
06:34 14Suspended Chords
06:02 15The Circle of 5ths
12:48 16How to Change Key
14:54 17Natural Minor Scale
11:21 18Chords in the Minor Scale
05:59 19Harmonic Minor Scale
07:15 20Melodic Minor Scale
11:12 21Modes
03:54 22Ionian Mode
00:47 23Dorian Mode
03:14 24Phrygian Mode
03:14 25Lydian Mode
01:21 26Mixolydian Mode
02:11 27Aeolian Mode
01:03 28Locrian Mode
03:56 29Section introduction
00:17 30Song Analysis 1 - Capsize
15:25 31Song Analysis 2 - Floating
18:07Lesson Info
Working out Major and Minor Triads
Hello and welcome to this lecture. We'll be going to look at actually analyzing and working out what different chords are. So I have four chords here written on this score and we're going to go through and work out exactly what these cords are. So you notice this first cord is actually in root position, we know it's in reposition because we have the gaps of thirds like this. So when you see on the score, there's an even gap of thirds like this, you know, it's in the root position. The second chord here, for example, is not in root position. But if we just drag this down one octave, now you can see it's in root position, let's just undo that and have a look at this first chord. So if you remember the pattern for a major chord is five and four, so that means five notes and then four notes, these five notes actually make up a major third and the four notes actually make up a minor third. So on the piano here, if I play this chord, this is ad major chord, I know this because it's actually ...
a major third between the roots and the third and then a minor third between the third and the fifth. So let's just have a look at this on the piano roll. So this first chord here. So you can see the gap between the root and the third is actually bigger than the gap between the third and the fifth. That's because a major third has one more semitone than a minor third. So if we count up here, including the first and last note, we have 12345. So remember a major chord is five and four. So this is a major third, the five and the four is a minor third. So let's count up from here including the first and the last 1234. So the first one is a major. And from looking at the score, we can see because it's in root position because they're stacked evenly like this, the bottom note will give us the name of the chord and the bottom note is of course, ad so the first one is ad major, the second cord going along, we can see that this is not in root position because the gaps are not even if I move this one here down one octave. You can see that now the gaps are even. And let's just have a look at the piano roll editor. It's a bit easier to see here. We can see the gap between the root and the third is smaller and the gap between the third and the fifth is bigger. So I'm going to presume that this is a minor chord. So let's just count up, remember minor is four and five. So we need to count up and then 512345. So the second one is a minor, we can see here it starts on BS in root position. So the second chord is a B minor. Next is this cord here. We can see this is not in root position and you can see the gaps larger at the bottom here. So let's just move this up. So we have evenly spread notes here. So we can tell that this note here. This is still a F sharp, by the way. So this will be an F sharp chord. And let's go to the piano roll editor and we can see it's going to be a minor cord because the gap between the root and the third is smaller than the gap between the third and the fifth. But let's just count up. So we have 1234, remember minor chord is four and five. And let's count from here. 12345. So this is an F sharp minor and let's go to the last cord. So we can see here there's a larger gap here. Let's change this to root position just to make it easier. After a while, you'll be able to work out these calls without changing it to root position. But to start with, let's just change this. So this is an A, let's move this to an A, there we go of these three notes. The first one is ad the second one is an F sharp. The third is an A. So let's have a look, it's actually the same as the first chord, but let's just go through. So we have a larger gap here. So this is a major third. So we have 12345, then we have a minor 3rd, 1234. When it's a major triad from the root to the third and then a minor triad from the third to the fifth, it's a major chord. And when it's a minor triad from the root to the third and then a major triad from the third to the fifth, it's a minor cord or a minor triad. So that's how you can work out the chords. Of course, after time, after listening to a lot of music and analyzing theory, you should be able to hear if the chords are major or minor. But this is a way you can go in and actually analyze the notes and analyze the chords. And now we know we've got a major chord, a minor chord, a minor chord and a major chord. We can see on the score editor and on the piano roll editor that we have a major, a minor, a minor and a major. So that's just a way of analyzing the cords. Just remember this little pattern. I'm gonna say it once more. Five and four for major. So between the root and the third, you need to count up five. So 12345 and then 41234, this is for a major chord and then for minor, it's the other way around, It's a four and a five. So and then 12345. So that's for minor minor four and five major five and four. It's all actually based around the third. I'm just going to uh change this D major to ad minor. All we need to do is drop the third and that will change it from a major to a minor. You'll notice here, 1234, 12345. This D is now ad minor chord for triads like this. So free note chords is all about the third. If we have a minor cord and we raise the third by one semitone, it will now become a major chord. If we have a major chord and we drop the third by one semitone, it will become a minor chord. So if you want to quickly change a chord from major to minor, all you need to do is just drop the third. And if you want to quickly change a chord from minor to major. All you need to do is just raise the chord on semitone. Remember though the diatonic core progression, if you're changing a chord from major to minor or vice versa, it might be out of key. However, I recommend starting with the basic, starting with the diatonic core progression. And then you can always experiment, you can always change chores. You don't necessarily have to stick with the diatonic core progression. But I think it's a good place to start. So thank you for watching this lecture, which was all about working out different triads.
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