2 Change the value. - MIDI Manuals

Selecting and Playing Styles• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • What is a Chord? • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •The simple answer: Three or more notes played simultaneously is a chord. (Two notes playedtogether is an “interval” — an interval being the distance between two different notes. This is alsoreferred to as a “harmony.”) Depending on the intervals between the three or more notes, a chordcan sound beautiful or muddy and dissonant.The organization of notes in the example at left — a triad chord — producesa pleasant, harmonious sound. Triads are made up of three notesand are the most basic and common chords in most music.In this triad, the lowest note is the “root.” The root is the most important note in the chord, becauseit anchors the sound harmonically by determining its “key” and forms the basis for how we hear theother notes of the chord.The second note of this chord is four semitones higher than the first, and the third is three semitoneshigher than the second. Keeping our root note fixed and changing these notes by a semitone up ordown (sharp or flat), we can create four different chords.Major chord(ex. C)Minor chord(ex. Cm)Augmented chord(ex. Caug)Diminished chord(ex. Cdim)Minor 3rd Major 3rd Major 3rd Minor 3rd Major 3rd Major 3rd Minor 3rd Minor 3rdKeep in mind that we can also change the “voicing” of a chord — for example, change the order ofthe notes (called “inversions”), or play the same notes in different octaves — without changing thebasic nature of the chord itself.Inversion examples for the key of CGECCGEECGBeautiful sounding harmonies can be built in this manner. The use of intervals and chords is one ofthe most important elements in music. A wide variety of emotions and feelings can be createddepending on the types of chords used and the order in which they are arranged.49