While it’s perfectly acceptable to build a song using basic triads, extending the chords by adding more notes can really help to ramp up the level of sophistication. Suspended chords are great for adding movement to a chord progression. So, starting on C, four semitones up is E, then three more gets you to G - voila, a C major triad (C-E-G).įor minor triads, reverse the formula to 3/4 - three semitones up from the root to the 3rd, then four more to the 5th. If you don’t know the notes in the scale you work with, you can work out how to build major or minor triads on any root note with the 4/3 rule.įind your starting note, count four semitones up the keyboard to find the 3rd, then another three to get to the 5th. Like their diminished cousins, augmented triads also make great passing chords - try C - C+ - F. As there are 12 notes in an octave, augmented triads are symmetrical, so any of the three notes in the chord can be the root note. This results in three evenly-spaced chord tones, each separated by a major 3rd interval (four semitones).
So to create C+, for example, you’d start with C major (C-E-G) and raise the 5th (G) up one semitone to G# to end up with C-E-G#. In contrast, augmented chords are formed by taking a standard major triad and raising the 5th by a semitone. This interval is considered so unstable and unsettling that it was actively feared in the Middle Ages!īecause of this sonic instability, diminished chords sound fairly tense and unnerving in certain contexts, but work really well as passing chords to bridge the gap between a major triad and a minor triad - try Bb - Bo - Cm as an example.
Because the 5th has been lowered, the interval between it and the root note of the chord is referred to as a diminished 5th, and this has another name - the tritone, so called because it’s an interval of precisely six semitones, or three whole tones. If you take a regular minor triad and lower the 5th by a semitone, you get what’s known as a diminished chord. C major and D minor are examples of basic triads.
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