Neutron2K's Guide to Triad Chords

TRIADS are the most basic of chords. As the name implies, they consist of only 3 notes of their relative MAJOR scale.

There are four basic types of TRIADS.

MAJOR
MINOR
DIMINISHED
AUGMENTED

Each of these TRIADS has their own INTERVAL STRUCTURE (Sometimes called Chord Spellings). If you are unfamiliar with the concept of INTERVALS please read my tutorial on it in the BASICS section of the tutorials.

Triad Construction

As mentioned above, TRIADS are constructed from a set of INTERVALS taken from their relative MAJOR scale, (This actually applies to ALL CHORDS, not just TRIADS).

TRIAD INTERVAL STRUCTURES consist of 3 notes taken from the chords MAJOR scale. The following table illustrates the INTERVALS required to build each of the four TRIAD types:

TRIAD	SPELLING
Major	1 3 5
Minor	1 b3 5
Diminished	1 b3 b5
Augmented	1 3 #5

These numbers represent the INTERVALS required to build each CHORD type. Ok time for an example. Lets look at how the C Major Triad is Constructed.

First of we need to obtain the MAJOR SCALE for the root of the CHORD, in this case the C MAJOR SCALE. Lets look at it along with its INTERVALS.

NOTE	INTERVAL
C	1
D	2
E	3
F	4
G	5
A	6
B	7
C (Octave)	8

The left column contains the 8 NOTES of the C MAJOR SCALE, and the right column represents the INTERVAL number of each note.

So by looking at the INTERVAL STRUCTURE for the MAJOR TRIAD listed above (1, 3, 5), and retrieving the relative INTERVALS from the C MAJOR SCALE, we end up with the following 3 notes:

C Major = C E G

If you cannot work out how these notes were obtained you need to revise the INTERVALS tutorial under the BASICS section of this site.

The above 3 notes make up a C-MAJOR Triad that can be played anywhere on the neck of the guitar wherever these 3 notes appear. The most common method of playing a C MAJOR TRIAD is listed in the CHORD BOX below.

a C-Major Chord Box

As you can see, this chord shape contains the three notes of the C Major Triad spelled out above. C, E, G are all present with C and E being doubled up. If you play the bass E String with this chord, your technically playing a Triad Inversion as C will not be the lowest note in the chord, but it remains a C Chord because of the notes played.