Major Chord
A major chord, also called a major triad, is a root, a major third and a fifth. C E G, F A C and G B D are all major triads. The middle note is the one that makes the chord major, and moving it down by one semitone gives you the minor version.
- 3 notes
- C E G
- 1 3 5
which styles use it
- Pop
- Rock & folk
- Country
- Gospel
What does a major triad do?
Play C and G on their own. Two notes, an open fifth, and nothing in them tells you whether the chord is major or minor.
Now add E in between and you have C major. Take that E down one semitone to E flat and you have C minor. C and G are still exactly where you left them.
Play those two back to back a few times before reading on. One semitone is the entire distance between the two chords, and it sits on the middle note.
Musicians call that difference colour and describe C major as the brighter of the two. The word is a comparison between the two chords. The concrete change behind it is always E moving to E flat.
On a guitar the same move takes one finger. Play an A major chord, move the finger on the B string back one fret, and you are playing A minor. That fret is the third.
What does each of the three notes do?
Add the notes one at a time, then use the switch to move the third down one semitone and listen to what the other two do while it moves.
Which notes are in a major triad?
Start on C. Skip D and play E. Skip F and play G. Those three notes are a C major triad.
The skipping is what gives the chord its open sound. Play C, D and E together instead and the notes sit one step apart, close enough that they blur into each other.
Counted as intervals, C to E is a major third of four semitones and C to G is a perfect fifth of seven. Written as scale degrees that is 1, 3 and 5, which is the formula you will meet in chord charts.
The counting is the same from every root: four semitones up, then three more, with black and white keys counting equally. From F you land on F, A and C. From A you land on A, C sharp and E. From E flat you land on E flat, G and B flat.
If you would rather work from a scale, take the first, third and fifth note of the major scale on that root. You get the same three notes.
Which chords contain a major triad?
C, E and G stay in place while other notes are added around them:
- Major seventh and sixth: Cmaj7 is C E G B, C6 is C E G A
- Dominant seventh: C7 is C E G B flat, and the B flat is what makes the chord point onward
- Add9: the ninth is added above, and the three notes below it are untouched
Play C E G, then E G C, then G C E. All three hold the same three notes, so all three are C major. What you are hearing change is which note sits at the bottom, and the name still comes from C because C is what the other two are measured from. Those are the inversions.
Two chords change the triad instead of adding to it. Augmented raises the fifth to G sharp, so the major third is still there and the chord is no longer a major triad. Sus chords replace the third with the second or the fourth, which leaves no third to read.
Where do you find major triads in a key?
Stack thirds on every degree of a major scale and the seven chords come out in a fixed row: major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, diminished. In C that is C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am and Bdim.
Three of those seven are major triads, and they sit on the first, fourth and fifth degree. That is where the pairing of C, F and G comes from, and why those three shapes cover so many songs.
The other four are not. Three are minor, on the second, third and sixth degree, and the seventh is diminished. That ratio is worth remembering when you are working out a key from a chord sheet: find the three major triads and you have found the first, fourth and fifth degree.
The same positions hold in every key, so in G they are G, C and D. The full row for each key is in diatonic chords.
Does a major triad mean happy?
Played next to a minor chord it reads as the brighter of the two. That is a comparison, and it says more about the pair than about either chord on its own.
Two things are worth keeping apart. The blend follows from the ratios in the section below, it can be measured, and it comes out the same everywhere. The association with a mood is learned, and it varies with what a listener has grown up hearing.
Bright and dark are useful shorthand for the contrast. The concrete change behind those words is always the same: one note, one semitone.
Why does a major triad sound settled?
Play one low C and you are hearing more than one note. Above it sits a fixed row of quieter tones, and numbers four, five and six in that row are a C, an E and a G.
The three notes of a major triad stand in the ratio 4:5:6. Their overtones land on top of each other often, which is what reaches you as a still, blended chord. A minor triad turns up much further along the same row, at 10:12:15, so the same overlap arrives later and less often.
The step from 4:5:6 to 10:12:15 is the measurable difference between the two chords, and it is the same on every instrument in every key. The row those numbers come from is explained in The Harmonic Series and Tuning and Temperament.
Where you play it changes how well that blend survives. Below middle C the third starts to muddy, because the overtones of the two lower notes sit close enough together to beat against each other. Keep the root low, put the third an octave higher, and the same three notes come back clear. That spacing is what voicings are about.