Thursday 1 May 2014

Types of triads..

This post is pretty much a sum-up of the triads that I have learnt so far through TAFE and my other musical studies, so I can quickly refer to this if I need to. The descriptions I've given are the ones that I learnt in TAFE.



Major triad
1, 3, 5 from it's major scale.






Minor triad
1, flat 3, 5 from the root note's major scale (or 1, 3, 5 from the root note's natural minor scale (ie., in the example, 1, 3, 5 from C Minor).
In chords, you can generally look at the third of the chord to determine whether it's a primarily major or minor - the third kind of voices it. If it's a regular third from the major scale, it's a major chord. If it's a flattened third (from the major scale), or a regular third from the natural minor: it's primarily a minor chord.

Diminished triad
1, flat 3, flat 5, from the root note's major scale
'Diminish' means 'make or become less', and that is what we're doing with this chord. We are taking the minor chord, and making it even smaller by flattening the 5th.





Augmented triad
1, 3, sharp 5 from the root note's  major scale
The definiton of 'augment' is 'make (something) greater by adding to it; increase'.
That's is literally what we're doing, we're making the chord 'bigger' by sharpening the fifth.
(Your fingers stretch further on the keyboard).


Ok so I don't actually know if these two Suspended Chords are counted as triads or not.. I was told they were at TAFE but I'm not entirely sure if it's right. I've read some places that they are and other places don't say that they are. If anyone knows, please comment and let me know if they are or not! :)


Sus2

1, 2, 5 from the root note's  major scale
A Sus chord (suspended chord) is where the third is 'suspended' from it's usual place. In a Sus2, the third is 'suspended' and moved down to the second.




Sus4

1, 4, 5 from the root note's major scale
The same concept as a Sus2 chord is used, except the third is 'suspended' to the fourth place.


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