Triads

Triads are chords that consist of exactly three notes, so the term chord triad is rather redundant.

There  are  several ways to approach the building (or spelling) of triads.

First I’ll build them from a scale, and  then  talk  about  building  them individually.   I’ve  often  seen  them taught in the reverse order, but I find this method to be easier to understand and more  directly  applicable

to playing the guitar.

Now we recall chords we studied in C maj scale (and later others) and corresponding note:

CEG spells a C major triad,

DFA is a D minor,

EGB is an E minor,

FAC is an F major,

GBD is a G major,

ACE, is an A minor, and

BDF is a B diminished.

You’re probably wondering how I decided to  call  which  triads  major  or minor  or  diminished.   Well there’s two different ways of looking at it.

The easy way is to memorize that the chords built upon the first,  fourth, and  fifth  notes  of the scale are major, the ones built upon the second, third, and sixth notes of the scale are minor, and the one on the  seventh is  diminshed.   This  will  be  true  in any major scale and is useful to memorize.  But you want more right?  Well that brings me to the second way of looking at building chords, piece by piece.