Minor Chords Are Really Something

Well then, I’d better give you a good explanation as to why minor chords are really something. These sad sounding triads are an essential part of a composer’s harmonic vocabulary. Can one truly experience happiness without ever having lived through sadness? Well then, this philosophy begs us to familiarize ourselves with these minor triads in order to further appreciate major (happy sounding) triads.

As with our major triads, the first key shows how a minor triad can have different inversions. Inversions can be applied to any triad on this page. Essentially, going from one inversion to the next involves taking the bottom note of a triad and flipping it to the top. Inversions give triads some variety and flavor in their sound.

This is A minor and with its available diatonic triads:

Here is the root position and inversions for the one (I) chord in A minor:

D minor is up next. Look at the beautiful repertoire of triads that this key has to offer. I'm so excited, that I'm sitting down with a glass of water and an oxygen mask.

Finally, this display of E minor triads gives you a pretty good idea of the immediate triads that you can use in this key for composing and improvising.

All of the above left hand triads should be played with right hand minor scales of the same key. They should also be practiced from a composer’s perspective. In other words, copy the above examples on a piece of manuscript paper in order to practice penmanship through notation.

Maximum Minor Chords

Minor chords can become quite large and sonorous. How, you ask? You didn’t ask. Well, I’m going to tell you anyway. Don’t worry… it will be interesting.

If you keep adding thirds (the distance between two adjacent line notes or two adjacent space notes on a music staff) to a minor triad, you will eventually create a minor thirteenth chord.

Here’s an example: notice how an E minor triad has three notes in the spaces of the bass clef staff. If we keep adding space notes overtop of the E minor triad, we will eventually have the following notes: E, G, B, D, F#, A and C#. Those are the notes of an E minor thirteenth chord.

When forming a minor thirteenth chord, remember that the top three notes of the chord actually form a minor triad. In the case of the E minor thirteenth chord, the F#, A and C# form an F# minor triad.

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