Music Theory Basics - What's a chord?

Scale	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
C Major	C	Dm	Em	F	G	Am	Bdim
Quality	Major	Minor	Minor	Major	Major	Minor	Dim

What’s up?

I’m Sunshine Overdrive, a music producer and educator in the Seattle area. Thanks for watching my series on music theory basics for Music Producers. Many producers like myself learned most of their basics online, and almost always in the context of learning an instrument like a piano or guitar. The purpose of this series is to give you access to musical tools that you can use quickly, so you can start enjoying your process faster!

corny record scratch

WAIT HOLD UP: I’m a super badass who knows about harmonic chord stacking and I’m here to tell you….

Brosus calm the fuck down this isn’t for you.

Alright let’s get into the basics, What is a chord?

In its most basic form a chord is a combination of two or more notes played at the same time. Yep that’s it, if you are playing more than two notes at a time you are playing a chord.  Let’s take a look at how this looks on Abletons Piano roll.

A chord that contains two notes is called a “Dyad”

A chord that contains three notes is called a “Triad”

A chord that contains every single note on the piano…well that’s called a cluster BEEP chord

But also that’s a chord

The most basic type of chord that we commonly see in modern production is the Triad. A triad is constructed using a concept called intervals.

At its most basic an interval is used to describe the difference in pitch between two sounds.

Scale	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
C Major	C	Dm	Em	F	G	Am	Bdim
Quality	Major	Minor	Minor	Major	Major	Minor	Dim
Notes	C E G	D F A	E G B	F A C	G B D	A C E	B D F