The Harmonious Blacksmith: A Music Theory Exploration

Ep. 5: Triads and Chords(Part 2)

• Kevin Patrick Fleming • Season 1 • Episode 5

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Triads and Chords Part 2 | Music Theory Podcast

Welcome to Triads and Chords Part 2 on the Music Theory Podcast! In this episode, we continue our deep dive into the world of triads and chords, building on the foundational concepts covered in Part 1. Whether you're a music theorist, music educator, musician, or music student, this episode will further enhance your understanding of chord construction, harmony, and chord progressions in Western music theory.

We begin by exploring more advanced chord structures, including seventh chords, ninth chords, and extended chords, explaining how these chords are formed and function within different musical contexts. We also break down how to use inversions and voicing techniques to create smooth chord progressions and add complexity to your compositions and arrangements.

This episode is essential for those looking to elevate their understanding of harmony, tonal music, and advanced chord theory. We also touch on how historical trends in harmony, from classical to jazz and contemporary styles, have influenced the use of chords and progressions in modern music.

By the end of the episode, you'll have a clearer grasp of how to build and analyze complex chords, and how to incorporate them into your own musical projects. Don’t miss out—subscribe now for more music theory insights!


A deeper dive into TRIADS, the 4 TRIAD TYPES: MAJOR, MINOR, AUGMENTED, and DIMINISHED, EXTENDED HARMONY CHORDS like 7TH CHORDS, SUSPENSION CHORDS, and ADD CHORDS, and INTERVALS including MAJOR 3RD and MINOR 3RD, because they are the building blocks of ALL of the above triads and chords.

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What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of The Harmonious Blacksmith. This is episode five of the series, and I am your host, Kevin Patrick Fleming. Oh, no, no, don't do that, no, oh, no, don't do that. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today. I do hope that you're enjoying my series so far and that you are learning a lot from it. So let's take just a little time at the beginning of this episode to recap what we are building in this linear and cumulative podcast. So far, all the way back from episode one, we started with a single note. We talked about what notes were. Then we talked about how much cooler it is to have multiple notes. And then scales start to form. We broke down that there are formulas based on whole steps and half steps that do create scales that we use in modern times. And we went all the way as far as to define what diatonic scales were and how they work. Eventually, we got to the skipping method of how we get triads, the harmonic basis for our system. The idea that you get these three notes stacked on top of each other as a foundation for harmony in our system, and also that those triads are the basis for all the chords that come out in the system. And then in our last episode, we went through chord progressions, and we even talked Talked about the 1-4-5 progression. If this is your first time jumping into my podcast and you don't recognize all of those terms I just spoke about, do go back to episode one and listen to all of it to get caught up with the rest of us. That's the reason I review. I mean, this is 100% an educational podcast, and so I do care about you having an understanding from start to finish. And you can go back to the beginning, get caught up with the rest of us, and come on back when you're done. So on to today's topics, and this episode is really just a continuation of triads, chords, and chord progressions for your information. But I would like to start today's episode to dispel what may seem a bit mysterious from previous episode, which is

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the

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four triad types. But Kevin, I only ever heard you talking about three triads so far. What you talking about four? Oh yeah, that is true. I have only talked about three so far because there are only three that show up quote-unquote naturally within diatonic major and minor scales. But there is a fourth triad, and that fourth triad is called augmented. Instead of just straight up defining what an augmented triad is this time, we're going to have fun with a little comparison. of the four triads. So to recap, we have major, we have minor, we have diminished, and we have augmented. And those are all the mathematical permutations that we have for triads, believe it or not. Wait a second. You're telling me there's only four of them in the whole system? I heard all this music with all these chords. You gotta be kidding me. Yeah, no, I'm serious. There are only four of them based on the criteria of how they're created, and you'll fully understand that once we're done with this comparison. So let's review triads coming from the skipping method. Of course, we're going to go back to major key, and I'm going to pull from, in this episode, let's switch to G major. Do any of you recall how the triads were laid out in every major key? your key doesn't matter whether i'm doing c like previous episodes or g in this one do you remember hint hint it has to do with the roman numeral system that we introduced in the previous episode Well, in a major key, we have three major triads, three minor triads, and one diminished triad. And it's actually the same in a minor key. They are just in a different order. So let's go ahead and set up our key of G major so that we can do all of this. Do y'all remember the formula in whole steps and half steps for a major scale? Whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half, right? I'm sure all of you got that by now. So let's go ahead and build it. We're going to start on the G. A whole step gives us A. Another whole step gives us B. Half step gives us C. Whole step to D. Whole step to E. Whole step to F sharp. And half step back to G. Okay. This could be a good time for some of you to pull out your keyboard or piano images. That way you can understand where that F sharp came from. Again, remember that all the pitches that come out on any instrument, doesn't matter if it's piano or guitar like I'm playing, They all bow down to that formula. So the sharps and flats come out based on the whole steps and half steps. You can see that readily on a piano where you have the black and white contrasting keys. So let's start our first triad with G as a root. So if you remember, we start on the root note G. We skip A and take B. We skip C and take D. And when we put those together, we get G, B, and D, which it turns out is a major triad. But what makes it major, minor, augmented, or diminished? Well, in order to understand that, I need to introduce a new concept, which is called intervals. An interval in music is just the distance between two sounds. I am so excited to be able to do an entire episode dedicated to intervals in the near future. But for now, we just want to understand a couple of intervals and the way they sound. Happily, there are a couple of intervals you've already understood, which are the half step and the whole step. The two smallest movements from one sound to another sound. in our Western system. So recall the half step, which is moving either one note up or one note down, either direction. So let's say I'm starting on a D. I can go up a half step, which would be one fret on a guitar or one key on a piano. Or I can go down a half step, which is going down one fret on a guitar. Or So a half step up sounds like... And a half step down sounds like...

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The

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next interval is a whole step. So starting on that D again, if I go up a whole step, it sounds like this. If I go down a whole step, it sounds like this. But Kevin, why are you doing all that? It seemed like a bunch of stuff. I don't even need to know. No, you do need to know it. As a musician, this is very important to understand the building blocks that make up all the different sounds in music. But what I'm leading to is how we create the four triads. So let's build them. Let's start with the good old major triad. So we already built the first one in G major, G, B, and D. But how is it constructed to make it sound major the way it sounds? Well, here it goes. When we start on G and we take the skipping triad methods and we go to the third note in the scale B, it happens to be two whole steps away from G. So from G to B... is two whole steps of distance. And that gives you what we call in intervals, a major third. A major third is exactly two whole steps of distance from one pitch up to the next pitch. And that is exactly what gives us that happy pitch. bright, uplifting sound that we call major. It's simply the interval, the distance between the two pitches when you create a major triad. So that explains the sound between the first and the third within the triad. But what about between the third and the fifth of the triad? Well, when it comes to a major triad, which is what I'm sticking with right now, your distance between your third and your fifth is a whole step plus a half step. And that sounds like this. The third is B and the fifth is D. When you put them together, they sound like this. And that interval is what we call a minor third. A minor third is exactly one whole step plus one half step of distance between two intervals. notes. So now, just for comparison's sake, let's build both the major third and the minor third off of the same pitch G, which is our key, right? We're in G major, but we're just going to use this to compare the sounds back to back. A major third would sound like this. And a minor third would sound like this. So again, back to back. Major. And then minor. So see how the major is a little more uplifting and brighter? And the minor is a little darker and a little sadder, right? It's literally one half step of movement in the sound that is the difference. What, Kevin? You gotta be kidding me. Only one half step in between a major and minor sound? Yep, that's correct. One half step of difference makes the whole sonority completely different and completely in a different expressive realm of emotion. So now you've learned officially your first two intervals in music, which is a major third, which is two whole steps between two notes, and a minor third, which is just a whole step and a half step between two notes. The reason we're going over these is because these are the intervals that make up all four triads in the Western system. Basically, we're just exhausting the permutations or the possibilities. So let's compare the sound of the four triads in our system, major, minor, diminished, and augmented. So when we start with major, it starts with a major third interval between the first two notes, followed by a minor third interval between the second pair of notes. So in other words, I start on a G, a major third from there, or two whole steps up gives me a B, and But from B to D, I have a whole step and a half step. If you recall, that's a minor third, which sounds like this. So you have a major third on bottom and a minor third on top. And when you put them together, you get a major triad. So a minor triad is actually exactly the opposite. It has a minor third on bottom... and then a major third on top. So when you put those together, you get a minor triad. So then what are the other ones? Well, a diminished triad is gonna be two minor thirds stacked on top of each other. So G to B flat is a minor third, and B flat to D flat is a minor third. And when you put those together, it sounds like this. And then finally, the augmented triad is going to have two major thirds stacked on top of each other. So G would go to B. And B would go to D sharp this time. And when you play those three together, you get an augmented triad. So now here's what they all sound like when they're right next to each other. Major triad. Minor triad. Diminished triad. Augmented triad. And those are all four triads in our system. Phew! Okay, that might have been a lot to process in a small period of time, but I realized I needed to go over that because we are about to expand our chord knowledge, our knowledge of chords and how we can create extended chord harmony, as well as just different chord progressions in general, other than the one we went over in the previous episode, which was the 1-4-5. So now I'm going to double back a little bit to what I talked about previously about how triads, these four triads we've been talking about, are really the foundation of all the chords that we make in our system. Well, what does that mean? Well, I'm going to give you a little comparison here. Everybody enjoys a bowl of ice cream every now and then. Yes, they do. So imagine that these four triads we get are like a bowl of vanilla ice cream. It's delicious. We like it. We would love to enjoy a bowl of ice cream if that's what's put in front of us. But wouldn't it be better with sprinkles on top, with caramel on top, or even chocolate syrup? So think about this. The basic triads are going to be your vanilla ice Out of all the chords and basically your extended harmony or your expanded chords that we're about to go into are going to be like putting sprinkles or caramel or chocolate or really anything that you choose on top of a bowl of vanilla ice cream. So let's get into it. So our first extended harmony chord beyond just the vanilla triads will be called a seventh chord. A seventh chord is a four-note chord that includes the three notes of the vanilla triad plus one more note on top. And the note on top is decided by the same rules that we use to get all the other notes of the triad, the skipping method, where you just skip notes. So basically, we're just skipping one more. So think about it like this. If you think of a root triad from a scale and the scale degrees, you start on the first note one, then skip one and take the third, then Then skip and take the fifth. And now we're going to skip again and take the seventh. So when I put all those together, it sounds like this. And that is what we call a major seventh chord. So for example's sake, let's just start on a different root note and build another major seventh chord for your understanding. So now I'm just going to start on A. which is this pitch. Then my third is C sharp. My fifth is E. And then my seventh is G sharp. And when you put all those together, it sounds like this. So that first G major 7 sounds like this. And then the A major 7 sounds like this. And for example's sake, another one, a D major 7 would sound like this. So if I put all those together, you might get something like... Really kind of a translucent, dreamy sound. I always tell my students to think about a cherub on a cloud. You're kind of drifting off into some kind of daydream where you're no longer paying attention to whatever's in front of you and just kind of enjoying a relaxing ride on a cloud. And this is what I was talking about, about adding sprinkles or chocolate on top of the bowl of vanilla ice cream, right? It just gives it more flavor, a little something extra, and it's the same in music. You have the same bass chord on the bottom, but that one extra note on top that we call a seventh just gives it a little bit more flavor. There are actually multiple types of seventh chords as well. So we just demonstrated a major seventh chord. There are also minor sevenths. There are also dominant sevenths. There are diminished sevenths, half diminished sevenths. There's a lot of different kinds of them, and I'm not going into all of them today. Just Understand the concept. The idea that you have this vanilla triad that's three pitches, and when you add another note using the skipping system, you get yourself a seventh chord. The name of it and how it comes out in sound really just depends on what key you're in, what tonality you're in, and what you're basing your chord off of. And just to explain how this carries on, if you take a triad and add a note, you get a seventh chord. If you take a seventh chord and add another note on top, you get a ninth chord. If you take a ninth chord and add another note on top, you get an 11th. And if you take an 11th chord and add another note on top, you get a 13th. And that's where it stops, because there is no such thing as a 15th. You're back to the octave, which is back to the beginning of the triad. And those numbers, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th, those are all based on scale degree above the root of the chord. So, recap, a triad is 3 notes, a 7th chord is 4 notes, a 9th chord is 5 notes, an 11th chord is 6, and a 13th chord is 7. So, if you're used to reading a lot of chord charts, like me, because I'm a guitarist at heart, even though I play seven instruments... If you're used to reading a chord chart, you're used to seeing things like sevenths and ninths. They're pretty normal. You might also see things like sus, S-U-S, or A-D-D, add, things like that, and they have different meanings. So let's go over those two now, because those are very common. The first one I referred to, where you might see a chord that says like G-sus-4, that's S-U-S-4, is called? A suspension cord. A suspension chord is a chord in which the major or minor third is omitted and it's replaced with a fourth or a second. Again, those numbers are referring to scale degrees. So the lack of major or minor third in the chord gives it this sort of free and open sound in the middle, but the addition of the second or the fourth in its place adds a little bit of musical tension because that note is right next to one of the other notes in the chord. To make sure that it's clear, what I'm saying is you're taking the triad and you're getting rid of the middle note of the three and you're replacing it with a different scale degree, two or four. So again, remember, a root triad would be 1, 3, and 5. We're going to replace the 3 in the middle with a 2 or a 4. And then you'll call it a sus 2 or a sus 4 chord. Let's demonstrate. So again, I'm going to start in G major. And our scale degree 1 is G. Then scale degree 3 is B. And scale degree 5 is D. And then that gives us a major triad. So again, what we're going to do is we're going to get rid of the middle one and replace it with a two or a four. And tell you what, the most common one is a sus4. So I'm going to go ahead and demonstrate that. So one, two, three, four. The fourth scale degree is what gives the chord its name. Now I'm going to play the root note, the fourth note, and the fifth note. And that sounds like this. So you can tell it has this interesting airy sound, but it also has a little bit of tension that a normal triad doesn't. And that tension really wants to be resolved. So when I say resolved, it means it wants to go back to a comfortable consonant place because it is a dissonant sound. So listen to it again. So Now listen to it if I move it to a point of resolution, which would just be moving the 4 back to its original place of 3. One more time. One more time. So you can tell it gives this musical tension that we talked about in a previous episode, but within the same chord frame. So instead of actually changing chords to achieve musical tension, you're doing it within the chord by replacing that middle note with a two or a four. So now let's hear what that sus2 sounds like. So you can imagine now the sus2 is replacing the middle note, the third, with a scale degree 2. So let's see how that works. Scale degree 1 is G. Scale degree 2 is A. And then scale degree 5 would be D. When you put them together, it sounds like this. So again, you get this sort of hanging tension feeling from it, as if it needs to go somewhere and be resolved, like this. And all I did was resolve the suspended note back to its original note, which is the third scale degree of the original triad. So our last extended harmony example in this episode is going to be what we call an add chord. An add chord is when you take the original vanilla triad and you just add another scale degree, not based on the skipping method that we're used to adding. So we're used to like adding another one for seven or nine where you're adding and you're continuing to stack. But in this case, it's just the original triad plus another note that's added somewhere in the middle of it or on top of it. So let me explain. If you have a ninth chord, like we've been explaining in this episode, you'll have scale degrees one, three, five, seven, and nine, all stacked on top of each other to make a ninth chord. But if you have a add nine chord, you're going to have scale degrees one, three, five, and then you're just going to have a floating added nine on top of that. So in other words, the seventh that was there in a ninth chord won't be there because that is part of the skipping method. But when it comes to adds, you're just taking the triad and you're just adding another note somewhere. So to demonstrate, a G9 chord would consist of a G... which is a 1, a 3, which is a B, a 5, which is a D, a 7, which is an F sharp, and a 9, which is an A. And you would play all of those together at the same time. So that is a G9 chord, but if I wanted to play just a G chord, add nine then i would just have the notes of the triad one three and five and then i would just add the nine on top of it and so that would just sound like this So a sus chord or suspension chord replaces the middle note of a triad with one of its neighbors. But an add chord is going to include all three notes of the triad and just add another note, whether it's in the middle. It could have been one of those neighbors you add, or it could have been something on top of it. You know, add two, add four, add six, add nine. All of those would include the original three triad notes you're just adding that one extra addition on top of it time to recap episode five we learned about the four main triad types major minor diminished and augmented and the intervals that go with it so We defined what an interval in music is and talked about the major and minor thirds and how they compose all four of our triads. We learned about extended harmony like seventh chords, ninths, elevenths, thirteenths. And in the end, we also learned about suspension chords and add chords and how those are used in chord progressions. Coming up, we've got another episode with more chord progressions coming. And we're going to mix and match a lot of these concepts that we've been building up to now to continue to understand chord progressions. Thanks again for tuning in to the Harmonious Blacksmith, y'all. I really do appreciate your time, and I can't wait to continue this music theory exploration with all of you.