Piano Video Lesson: The Most Essential Chord: What is a Triad?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, Robert Estrin here. Today's topic is kind of an amazing thing. I've been making videos since 2009 on YouTube. I actually started making piano videos, believe it or not, back in the late 1990s. But that's a whole other story. But what's remarkable today is I've got a subject that I can't believe I have not covered before with my 1600 plus videos, which is, what is a triad? A triad is the most basic chord that exists in music, and I'm going to break it down for you so you'll have a keen understanding of what a triad is.

Okay, very simply put, a triad is a chord containing three notes arranged in thirds.

And so the first thing I must show you is what is a third? Well, scales are built diatonically. That means intervals of a second.

So every note of a scale is a second apart.

Those are all seconds. If you skip a note in a scale, voila, there is a third.

Any time you skip a note in a scale, it's a third. In fact, any time you go from one letter and skip a letter and go to another letter, that is some type of third.

Fortunately, there are only two types of thirds that are used in triads.

And by the way, there's only two types of thirds that are used in the vast majority of chords. Believe it or not, even sophisticated chords with ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths, sharp 11, and all these crazy chords, they can all be broken down to thirds.

Fundamentally, you've got two types of thirds, major thirds and minor thirds. And to make things easy for you, I'm going to show you what they are in the simplest possible terms. Once again, there are always two letters that are separated by another letter.

And a major third is a total of four half steps. So if you start on middle C, count it up. One, two, three, four. There is a major third. Very simple.

A minor third is smaller. It's only three half steps. So once again, start from middle C. One, two, three. That's a minor third.

That basically are the building blocks of Western harmony in a nutshell. And you can actually figure out chords by simply arranging the notes in thirds. I'm going to get to that in a little bit. But first, let's get to the very basics. So you have two different types of thirds, major thirds, which are the big one with four half steps, and minor thirds, the ones with three half steps. You have four possible arrangements. You could have a major third on the bottom and a minor third on top. Because as I said, a triad contains three notes arranged in thirds. So you have a root, a third, and a fifth. One, two, three, four, five. So you've got a third on the bottom and a third on the top.

If you have a major third on the bottom and a minor third on top, one, two, three, four. Major third and a minor third on top, one, two, three. That is called a major triad.

Now, if you reverse it, put the minor third on the bottom, the major third on the top, one, two, three, one, two, three, four.

So now, this is a minor triad. So you started with C, E, G, and now you have C, E flat, G. Could you call that D sharp? No, why? Because all chords are spelled in thirds. Triads are built in thirds, and thirds must skip every other letter. So you must call this C, E flat, G. So now you're probably second guessing what's coming. That's right, if you have two minor thirds, that's a diminished triad. One, two, three, one, two, three.

C, E flat, G flat.

Now, why is it called a diminished triad? Because the fifth has become diminished. Instead of the perfect fifth, which is the fifth note of the scale, it's now a half step smaller. So now you've got a diminished triad with two minor thirds, and finally, two major thirds.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. C, E, G sharp.

And once again, this is called augmented triad because the fifth has become augmented. Instead of C to G, the perfect fifth, the fifth note of the scale, it's become augmented. It's become larger by a half step.

That is everything you need to know about triads in a nutshell. Now, here's where it gets interesting. If you have, for example, a C sharp major triad.

C sharp, one, two, three, four.

One, two, three. Major triad, once again. Major third in the bottom, minor third on top.

C sharp.

And what is this note? Is that F? Well, it can't be F because I mentioned at the very beginning, triads are built on thirds. Thirds must skip every letter. So C sharp, this has to be an E sharp. That's right. And you might wonder, E sharp, why would it be spelled that way? Wouldn't that be confusing? Well, quite the opposite. Because if you saw this written, C sharp, E sharp, G sharp in your score, it would look like a triad, a chord. If you saw C sharp F, A flat or something of that nature, or F, G sharp, it wouldn't look like a chord anymore. You wouldn't recognize it as a chord. Imagine if you're a C sharp major and in your key signature, these are already sharp. You would just see all the notes thirds apart and it will click that this is a triad.

And you can figure out any major, minor, diminished, and augmented triad using this method.

Just remember, they always must skip letters. And you've got four combinations to recap.

This is a major triad, major third in the bottom, minor third in the top. Switch it up, minor triad, the minor third in the bottom, the major third on top.

Two minor thirds makes a diminished triad. Two major thirds makes an augmented triad. Always spelled in thirds.

And sometimes, and we'll get to this in a future video, but keep in mind that triads are not always in root position, meaning that the root of the chord isn't always on the bottom. So if you had a C major triad and the E was on the bottom and the C went on top, this is still a C major triad. How do you know this? You take the letters and arrange them in thirds. And that's how you find the root of the chord.

And future video, I'll talk about inversions. So you get your head around that and help to analyze your music. This understanding is tremendous for you to be able to figure out the harmonies and to learn your music, to be able to read more effectively and to make up music, to improvise. All of this is great practice for you. Once again, I'm Robert Estrin, LivingPianos.com, your online piano store. Thanks again for joining me.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/the-most-essential-chord-what-is-a-triad/

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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