Theory Lesson - Minor, Diminished, and Augmented Chords

So far we have learned our 12 major chords. This is an excellent start but to be able to play lots and lots and lots of songs on the piano we need to learn the rest of the basic chords.

Our basic chords are known as triads. I bet you can guess why they are called triads. That’s right! They have three notes. A triad is simply a three note chord.

There are four types of triads and each type of triad has 12 chords:

12 major chords

12 minor chords

12 augmented chords

12 diminished chords

Right now you might be thinking this is too much to handle, but don’t give up just yet. It really isn’t difficult once you know a trick or two.

Being that we already know the 12 major chords we are well on our way to being a chord playing pro. In only a few steps you will be able to quickly and easily build the other 36 chords listed above by slightly altering the major chords we already know!

Here are the tricks:

Minor Chords- All we have to do to form a minor chord is alter a major chord by lowering the 3rd a half step. The 3rd will be the note in the middle.

Augmented Chords- All we need to do to form this type of chord is to raise the 5th a half step. The 5th of a C chord would be G. The G would be raised a half step which is the next note directly to the right which happens to be a black key.

Diminished Chords- All we do here is lower both the 3rd and 5th a half step and we have a diminished chord. Remember, when we move by half steps we do not skip any notes. In this example we lower the E down to the next nearest key which is a black key and we lower the G down to the next nearest key which is a black key.

It can be really hard to get all this down in writing so why not take a look at the free piano lesson video I have created below which covers these chords in detail.