Major Chords For a Major Composer-in-Training

Here’s our lineup for tonight’s major chord web page. Each one of our three major triad team members will be displayed with statistics that include notes expressed as English letters and manuscript notation. When improvising, the seven different triads available within each key are effective tools.

The first displayed key will also show different possible inversions of the one (I) triad. Inversions can be applied to any of the other triads on this page. Going from one inversion to the next involves flipping the bottom note of a given triad to the top, thereby giving that triad a slightly different sound and color.

Here is the one triad and its possible inversions:

Moving right along, here are the available triads in F major:

Finally, these are triads within G major that you will find useful when improvising in this key:

Remember that these chords are notated for the left hand, and should be used in conjunction with right hand scales for improvisation purposes.

Mega Major Chords

Major chords can grow to be much more complex than just triads. Provided they get enough sleep and eat right, they can grow into seventh, ninth, eleventh and thirteenth chords. The easiest way to demonstrate this is to view how a C major triad can grow. Consider the following:

• C, E and G form a major triad,
• C, E, G and B form a major seventh triad,
• C, E, G, B and D form a major ninth triad,
• C, E, G, B, D and F form a major eleventh triad,
• C, E, G, B, D, F and A form a major thirteenth triad.

More complex chords need voicing. Voicing is the process of arranging the notes of a chord in an effective way to in order to create a desired sound. This often involves doubling or dropping a note from the chord that is being voiced. For example, the C major thirteenth triad sounds more effective when the F is not played.

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