top of page

Chord triads

A major scale has 7 notes in it. Let's take the scale of C, which has no sharps or flats in it

1   2   3  4   5  6   7
C  D  E  F  G  A  B

It's easy to remember how to make chords from a note - you always take notes 1, 3 and 5 with 1 being the root.

So you start from your
root note and you skip a note, take a note, skip a note, take a note.
Then you have a triad.

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

The notes highlighted in red make up the triad for C. 

That means a C chord always contains the notes C, E and G

You can always work out the notes in a chord from a scale like the one above! Can you write out the triads for each of the chords in the scale of C major? 

See if you can complete this chart!

C = C, E, G
D = D, F, A
    E =            
    F =            

G =        
A =        
B =        

Try and complete this exercise 2-3 times a week from scratch. It won't take long to memorise the triads!

bottom of page