If you’ve followed my videos you might be familiar with some of my more advanced videos on this subject: How to Play Chords on the Piano Part 1 and Part 2; Diminished 7th Chords Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, and What are Parallel Chords? as well as some videos that cover the basics of scales: Relative Minor Scales, Major Scales, Whole Tone Scales, and Chromatic Scales. A lot of these videos go very well with this topic and they all relate to one-another.
So what is a chord? It might seem simple when you think about it but trying to put it into words can be challenging.
A chord is 3 or more notes arranged in thirds.
A scale is built upon whole-steps and half-steps (seconds) and a chord is built on the interval of a third. What is a third? It is essentially every other note of a scale. So if you were to play a C major scale (or any other major scale) and leave out every other note you would have a chord! It really is that simple; you can make a chord by simply playing every other note of a scale.
There are two types of thirds that are used in chords: major thirds with a total of four half-steps and minor thirds which contain three half-steps. Different combinations of major thirds and minor thirds are the fundamentals of Western harmony. There are expanded chords we can get into in another video but this is the basic information on what exactly a chords is.
And when it comes to chords, you don’t have to start on the first note of a scale, you can start on the second, the third and so on as long as you skip every other note of the scale.
Thanks so much for joining me here. We will be bringing you more videos on this topic very soon. If you have any questions please contact me directly Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729.