music theory for musicians and normal people by toby w. rush although a chord is technically any combination of notes Triads played simultaneously, in music theory we usually define chords as the combination of three or more notes. secundal tertial quartal quintal harmony harmony harmony harmony and œ harmony? œœ œ œ œ œœ œ œ tertial œ œ œ septal chords built from chords built from chords built from chords built from seconds form thirds (MORE perfect fourths perfect fifths tone clusters, SPECifically, from create a different can be respelled as respectively. harmony, which are not major thirds and sound, used in quartal chords, harmonic so much minor thirds) compositions from and as such they harmony? as timbral. form the basis of the early 1900s do not create a most harmony in and onward. separate system of are the same as as with quintal harmony, these harmony, as with quintal the common harmony. secundal practice period. sextal well, diminished thirds sound is the chord still tertial just like major seconds, and if it is built from diminished augmented thirds sound just thirds or augmented thirds? like perfect fourths, so... no. œ œ let’s get started the lowest note in the chord & œ on tertial harmony when the chord is in simple œ with the smallest form is called & œ chord possible: the root. the œ the triad. fifth ? œ when we stack names of the œ the chord in other notes third thirds within one octave, are based on root we get what is called the their interval simple form of the chord. above the root. œ a triad is defined as a œ three-note chord, there are four ways to create a triad but in practice it is almost always used using and to refer to tertial three-note chords. major minor thirds: the the the the minor major diminishedtriad triad triad augmentedtriad two minor thirds a major third on top a minor third on top two major thirds stacked together a minor third on bottom a major third on bottom stacked together min 3rd maj 3rd min 3rd maj 3rd & bbœ min 3rd & bœ min 3rd & œ maj 3rd & #œ maj 3rd c°œ cœ Cœ Cœ+ we label triads using their root (”a c minor triad”). the abbreviations shown above, which use upper case, lower case, and symbols to show chord type, are called macro analysis. licensed under a creative commons BY-NC-ND license - visit tobyrush.com for more.