What Is Chord?

Chord in music is a harmonic set of musical notes, also called pitches, that are played simultaneously to produce a harmony (in simple terms, to produce a pleasing resultant sound). Iit adds to the beauty of the song.

The most effective application of playing chords for a beginner may be offering harmonic beautification (with Left hand) to the melody (with right hand). Correct chords will enhance the beauty of the playing. In addition, a chord being the set of multiple notes played simultaneously, it makes a harmonious impact of loudness for that moment, this adds to the excitement of the song. There are various types of chords used in music. Let’s focus on major and Minor types of chords and how to play them on piano or other keyboard-based instruments.

What Are Major Chords and Minor Chords?

Major and Minor are the types of chords out of many types. The most commonly used chord types are Major and Minor. Let’s understand how to play major type and minor type chords on keyboard piano. A chord starts from a reference note for example C note. C Major chord is playing C, E and G notes together. where the notes belong to the same octave. If you play them on the keyboard, you will feel the pitches making a harmonious sound, which will add to the beauty when played with the tune at the right moment. Now if you play F, A flat and C together belonging to the same octave, it will form F Minor chord. Notice the difference in the feel produced by both these chords. We have 12 major chords and 12 minor chords. As per the creative requirement, we have to play them with the song melody.

How To Construct Major And Minor Chords

Major Chords:

Let’s start with an example of C major chord. We have seen above that C, E and G played together is C major chord. For C major chord, play 1. “C note”, 2. 4 semitones ahead of it, which is “E note” and 3. 3 semitones ahead of it, which is “G note“. Thus, C – E – G notes make C Major Chord (Please note playing “ahead” means “rightwards”, it is also same as playing “up”. Rightwards is in terms of the direction on the keyboard and “up” or “ahead” is in terms of musical pitch.) Let’s see the example of F Major chord –

F major chord has-
F Note as the chord name includes F
The note 4 semitones ahead of F note, which is A note
The note 3 semitones ahead of A note, which is C note

Minor Chords:

Let’s take a look at the construction of Minor type chords as well. F Minor Chord includes 1. “F Note”, 2. 3 semitones ahead of it, which is “A flat note”, 3. 4 semitones ahead of it, which is “C note”. Thus, F – A flat – C notes make F Minor Chord.

Below are all 12 Major chords and 12 Minor chords for practice