Understanding Chord Names

Understanding chord names

What’s a chord anyway?

A chord is “3 or more notes played together”. 2 notes played together are called a dyad (also a double-stop).

Some basics first

Root – this is the note that gives the chord its name. (Written: R).

For example, all the following chords have the note E as their root note: E minor, E7, Esus4.

Third – determines whether the chord is major or minor. This is a BIG distinction!

Major chords have a major third (written: 3), minor chords have a minor third (written: b3).

Fifth – this supports the root note and can often be left out in favour of more important notes. (Written: 5).

Exception is when the fifth is diminished (written: b5) or augmented (written: #5), where these notes strongly affect the sound of the chord.

Chord formulae

Every type of chord has a specific formula, The formula gives you the intervals in the chord (ie. how far each note is from the root note).

Using the formula, and an understanding of intervals means you can figure out the chord in any key. We’re going to learn to do this directly on the guitar.

Note: the formulae just show you the different notes in a chord, not how many strings or notes you’ll actually play. For example, a G major chord only has 3 different notes, but we play 6 notes/strings when we play an open G chord.

The 3rd determines whether the chord is major or minor. The other notes will be the Root and 5th.

Major R 3 5 Minor R b3 5

First, play the following pairs of notes and listen to the difference in sound. We’re playing from a G root note. The major 3rd (a B note) has a brighter sound than the minor 3rd (a Bb note).

Now, play these two G barre chords. Each chord contains the root note (G) and the 5th (D). The major chord contains the major 3rd, the minor chord has a minor 3rd. This is the only note that changes.

There are two main types of 7th – minor 7th (written: b7) and major 7th (written: 7).

Major 7 R 3 5 7 Minor 7 R b3 5 b7 Dominant 7 R 3 5 b7

Play the following pairs of notes from the G root note. The minor 7th is an F note, the major 7th is an F#.

Then play the G barre chords below, noticing which notes change (they are in blue). Again, the root and 5th remain the same for all the chords.

If you write out 2 octaves of the scale, you’ll see that the ninth is the same note as the second note in the scale (but up an octave).

(R) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (R) R 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 G A B C D E F# G A B C D E F# G

The 9th is added to the 7th chord formula.

Common ninth chords would be:

Major 9 R 3 5 7 9 Minor 9 R b3 5 b7 9 Dominant 9 R 3 5 b7 9

You can find the 9th in 2 places from the G root. Each time you’ll be playing an A note:

Play through the chord shapes on the following page.

For the dominant 9th and minor 9th chords we are just adding the 9th on the first string to the 7th chord shapes.

For the major 9th chord, however, the 3rd has been replaced by the 9th on the 3rd string. This chord shape is commonly used for a major 9th chord, but strictly speaking it should be called Gmaj9 (no 3rd).

The G chords shown are all moveable – just find the appropriate root note on the 6th string.

Examples:

Ø to play C major, take the G major chord and move it to the 8th fret Ø to play Am7, take the Gm7 chord and move it the 5th fret Ø to play B9, take the G9 chord and move it to the 7th fret

In case you need a reminder, here are the notes on the 6th string:

Working out note names

If you wish to work out the specific note names in the chords, the simplest way is to take the appropriate major scale and apply the formula to it.

If you wanted to know the notes in a C9 chord, for example, you’d apply the formula (R, 3, 5, b7, 9) to the C major scale:

R 2 3 4 5 6 7 C D E F G A B

So the notes would be: C (Root), E (3rd), G (5th), Bb (you need to flatten the 7th), D (9th – 2nd up an octave).

What next? All this works with 5th string root chords too. The formulae remain the same, but the relative positions of the intervals will be different. Stay tuned…