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of note...

When we represent an interval on a staff, the pitches are called notes. When we play an interval, the pitches that are heard are called tones.




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CHORDS

Chords are three or more tones played together (blocked) or in quick succession (arpeggiated).  Two tones played together are called an interval. You already learned about intervals, but if you have forgotten some of that information, please go back to the Intervals module for a review. 

Diatonic chords consist only of notes in the scale being used.  In this module, the chords are diatonic, they are tertian (chords built up in thirds) and consist only of triads (three-note chords).

Triads

All triads consists of a root, third and fifth.   Here is a C major triad:

Reminder: You may click the pictures of the notes on the staff to hear them. Keep the mouse within the picture box until the sound completes. Chords will be first be played as blocked (all notes together) and then arpeggiated (each note of the chord will be played individually.)

On the keyboard it looks like this:

As you can see, there is a major third between the bottom note (root [C]) and the middle note (third [E]). There is a perfect fifth between the root and the top note (fifth [G]).There is a resulting interval of a minor third between the third and fifth.

Here is a C minor triad. 

There is a minor third between the root and the third (C and Eb) and a perfect fifth between the root and the fifth (C and G). There is a resulting interval of a major third between the third and fifth (Eb and G).