Learning how to build chords using the notes from scales is one of the most useful things I ever learned in music theory.  It has joined so many dots together for me that I urge people to learn how to do this if they are at all interested in the theory side of playing an instrument.

Starting with Major Scales.  C Major to be specific. 

Our Major Scale contains 7 notes (8 including the Octave):

C  D  E  F  G  A  B  C

This means we can create 7 different 3-note chords using these notes. One chord starting on each of the 7 notes. (We can do more but today we’re just looking at the foundations).

We do this by taking alternate notes and grouping them together

.

= CEG

     

= DFA

= EGB

= FAC

= GBD

= ACE

= BDF

 

Our 7 groups of notes from above are:

CEG

DFA

EGB

FAC

GBD

ACE

BDF

These are our foundational chords for C Major.   Each chord is its own independent chord but is also within the Key of C Major as we have only used the notes from the C Major Scale to build them.

Qualities

The quality of a chord is whether it is Major, Minor or Diminished (in this context).

 

Major Chord Sequence

In a Major Key the order of 7 chord qualities is always the same:

Major  |  minor  |  minor  |  Major  |  Major  |  minor  | diminished

 

What this means for us?  The 7 groups of 3 notes from above now can be matched with a quality.

CEG = C Major

DFA = D minor

EGB = E minor

FAC = F Major

GBD = G Major

ACE = A Minor

BDF = B diminished

 = Chords in the Key of C Major

 

End Notes

This is a fast track to find the triads in a key.  If you would like to know and understand the detail of how to work out the actual chord qualities from scratch using Intervals and the Musical Alphabet watch my deep dive lesson ⤵️

➡️ BUY the Premium PDF – This is 5 pages of diagrams, charts and explanations to help you work it all out.