Major triads are the most commonly used followed by minor triads. Diminished triads are used less often in popular music than major or minor triads. Augmented triads are the least common.

Their construction is easy to understand and is fundamental to understanding more complex chords that are built using the triads.

What is a triad?

The first thing to learn in music is the single notes of the chromatic scale. Next, you should learn all of the music intervals. Then there are the 3 notes that make up the four types of triads in music.

Practically every chord with 4 or more notes is just one of the four triads with additional notes. Triads in music are the basis for harmony.

Triad definition

A triad is a group of three notes where the second note is a third away from the first note, and the third note is a third away from the second note. The first note is called the “root”, the middle note is the “third” and the final note is the “fifth”.

There are 2 kinds of thirds: major and minor. A minor third is the distance of 3 half-steps, where a major third is 4 half-steps. If you do not know what I mean by “thirds” or “fifths”, then take a look at my article on music intervals.

So a triad is two successive third intervals, and since there are 2 types of thirds there are four possible combinations:

1. major third + major third

2. minor third + minor third

3. major third + minor third

4. minor third + major third

Those four combinations of thirds create the only 4 triads in music: major, minor, augmented and diminished triads. I’ll cover each one below, but I want to compare them to each other:

• Major & minor triads both have perfect 5ths.
• Augmented and diminished triads both have altered fifths.
• Major and augmented triads both have major thirds.
• Minor and diminished triads both have minor thirds.

Let’s look at each one separately.

Major triads

If you are only going to learn one type of triad, then it should be the major triads. There are many songs that only have major chords. Major triads have an unmistakable upbeat and lively sound.

The major triad:

1. Has a major 3rd above the root followed by a minor 3rd
2. The interval symbols are M3 + m3
3. Contains the root note + major third + perfect fifth
4. Usually notated as 1-3-5 or R-M3-P5

Example: C major = C – E – G

Minor triads

Minor triads have a more mellow sound than the major triad, and some people would say they have a somber sound. The majority of popular songs use a combination of major and minor triads.

The minor triad:

1. Has a minor 3rd above the root followed by a major 3rd
2. The interval symbols are m3 + M3
3. Contains the root note + minor third + perfect fifth
4. Usually notated as 1-♭3-5 or R-m3-P5

Example: C minor = C – E♭ – G

I include closed and bar chord versions of the major and minor triads in other articles.

Augmented triads

Augmented triads are not as common in popular music as the other three triads. I feel the augmented triad have an open or hollow sound to them, and I do not mean that in a bad way.

I find that they are best arpeggiated as opposed to strummed like other triads. They have a unique sound that you have to hear for yourself.

Check out the Wikipedia page on augmented triads if you want to learn more. This is just a quick music theory article covering the fundamentals.

The augmented triad:

1. Has a major 3rd above the root followed by another major 3rd
2. The interval symbols are M3 + M3
3. Contains the root note + major third + augmented fifth
4. Usually notated as 1-3-#5 or R-M3-A5

Example: C aug or C+ or C#5 = C – E – G#

Diminished triads

Diminished triads are interesting in that they contain the interval of the tritone, otherwise known as the “diminished” fifth. The diminished triad is a very dissonant chord because of the tritone interval.

As a result, this triad wants to resolve up a semitone to the tonic of the song. For example, Bdim resolves very smoothly to C major. Check out the Wikipedia page on diminished triads if you want to learn more.

The diminished triad:

1. Has a minor 3rd above the root followed by another minor 3rd
2. The interval symbols are m3 + m3
3. Contains the root note + minor third + diminished fifth
4. Usually notated as 1 – ♭3 – ♭5 or R-m3-d5

Example: C dim or C^o = C – E♭ – G♭

Here are the two classic augmented and diminished triad guitar shapes. The black slash for the last diminished triad is an optional root if you can mute the 5th and 4th strings. The white circles are the root note, the numbers are your fingers (1 = index, 2 = middle, 3 = ring, 4 = pinky).

Sus4, sus2 & majb5: the other “triads” \ chords in music

There are other 3-note chords used in popular songs that are not one of the triads in music.

The first two are suspended chords where the third of the triad is replaced either by the perfect fourth (most common) or the major second.

Suspended chords: sus4 or sus2
sus4 = 1-4-5, the root note followed by the perfect fourth and then the perfect fifth (R-P4-P5)
sus2 = 1-2-5, the root note followed by the major second and then the perfect fifth (R-M2-P5)

Example: Csus4= C – F – G, Csus2 = C – D – G

Note: Gsus4 = G – C – D, and in first inversion the notes are C – D – G – the same notes as a Csus2.

The last 3-note chord is the major flat five, notated as majb5. Personally, I do not use this chord nor do I have any chord shapes for it. I include it here for two reasons:

1. There is a maj♭5 chord in the song Great Gig In The Sky by Pink Floyd. If that chord is okay with Roger Waters, then it’s okay with me.

2. The 1-3-♭5 are the first three notes in every 7b5 chord, so it is definitely worth mentioning.

Majb5 = 1-3-♭5, the root followed by the major third and then the diminished fifth (R-M3-d5).

Example: Gmaj♭5 = G – B – D♭

Summary

The four most basic fundamentals in music are the chromatic scale, music intervals, the four types of triads, and the major scale. The last two are the most practical.

You use the major scale to improvise over a song, but a song needs to have chords in it to solo over. It’s the triads in music that are used to create the chord progressions of songs.

Once you understand the triads in music, then you can add other notes to them to build more complex chords. You use scales like the major scale to create 4, 5 and 6-note chords for more complex harmonies.

But when you strip away all the adds, sevenths, and extensions, you will find the triads are the heart of all harmony. You need to understand how to build and use all the triads in music. You won’t be asked to join a band if you don’t know what a diminished or augmented chord is. The choice is yours.

The post What Is A Triad? Triads In Music Theory For Guitar appeared first on Every Guitar Chord.

Diminished triads have a minor third and a diminished fifth, hence the name. It is built by adding a note a minor third above the root note, and a note a minor third above that second note.

You can add a diminished, minor or major 7th to the diminished triad to form the fully diminished, half-diminished and m-maj7♭5 chords respectively.

The diminished triad: chord formula

Take a look at my article on the 4 triads in music which includes the diminished triad. I cover each triad in detail so give that a quick read.

Basically, a diminished triad is built by stacking 2 minor thirds (m3) above a root note. That means that you add the note a minor third above the root note, then you add the note that is a minor third above the second note added (m3 + m3).

You can also view the diminished triad as a minor triad with a flattened 5th. Also, check out my music intervals article for descriptions of all the intervals used to build scales and chords.

All 7th-degree notes in major scales build a diminished triad. Let’s look at a B diminished triad in the key of C major as an example. The image below shows the notes in the B Locrian mode from the C major scale and the B Ultra Locrian from the C Harmonic Minor scale.

You can build a diminished triad from both scales. There are other scales that have diminished triads in them, but the half-diminished seventh chord and fully diminished seventh chord covered below have their origins in these two scales.

The chord formula for a diminished triad is:

Root note + minor third + diminished fifth = 1 – m3 – d5 = 1 – ♭3 – ♭5 = m3 + m3

The diminished triad is not very common in popular music (rock, country, etc.), though it is common in jazz and sometimes blues. You will see it in some popular genres, but usually, the dominant 7th is preferred since any dom7 chord contains the diminished triad.

Popular songs with a dim triad

Here are a number of songs that use the dim triad from the songbooks I own. Here are some examples that use the diminished triad:

Beach Boys: Caroline No, Friends, God Only Knows, Graduation Day, Let’s Go Away For A While
Beatles: Baby You’re A Rich Man, Blackbird, Hard Days Night, Michelle, I’m Happy Just To Dance With You, Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields Forever
Grateful Dead: The Other One, Dark Star, The Music Never Stopped
Led Zeppelin: Since I’ve Been Loving You
Sting: Mad About You
Simon & Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water
Jimmy Bryant: Stratosphere Boogie
Silverman’s Folk Song Encyclopedia, Vol. I & II: There are about 30 songs in each volume that use a diminished triad.

What is a half-diminished chord (m7♭5)?

A half-diminished 7th chord is just the diminished triad with a ♭7 added. It is notated as m7♭5 or with the ^ø symbol and a 7, e.g. B^ø7 = Bm7♭5. By the way, that particular chord equals a m6 chord on the ♭3:

B-D-F-A (B^ø7) = D-F-A-B (Dm6)

B^ø7  or Bm7♭5 = 1 – ♭3 – ♭5 – ♭7 = 1-m3-d5-m7

The chord gets its name because the perfect 5th is diminished, but the seventh degree is not. There is a fully diminished chord that does have a diminished seventh degree (see below).

The half-diminished chord is a “… considerable instability”. – Henry, Earl and Rogers, Michael (2004). Tonality and Design in Music Theory, Vol. I

Half-diminished seventh chords only have that name because there is a fully diminished seventh chord. Otherwise, the chord would just be called a m7♭5 –  I use “m7♭5” and not ^ø7 when I write out the chord.

Popular songs with a half-diminished chord

Here are some examples of songs that use the m7♭5 chord:

Beach Boys: Caroline No, Don’t Talk, God Only Knows, I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times, Let’s Go Away for a While
Grateful Dead: Cosmic Charlie, France, The Music Never Stopped, Terrapin Station
Bob Dylan: When I Paint My Masterpiece
Beatles: Penny Lane
Little Feat: Time Loves A Hero
Stevie Wonder: My Cherie Amour, You Are the Sunshine of My Life

To better understand what a half-diminished seventh chord is, let’s take a look at the fully diminished chord.

The fully diminished chord

The fully diminished chord (dim7) is one of the 2 symmetrical chords. Symmetrical chords and scales have notes in them that are an equal distance apart from each other.

Most people only mention the dim7 and augmented triad as chords that repeat after a certain interval but there are 4 other ones: 7♭9#11, 13#9 (no root or 5th), 7♭5, 13♭5#9 and 9♭5♭13. Know that tritones invert to tritones.

Dim7 chords consist of two tritones and the chord repeats every minor 3rd \ 3 frets. What that means is you can move the chord shape a minor third and it has the same notes in it but on different strings. Try it out for yourself – it’s really cool.

Like an augmented triad, the diminished seventh chord can have any of the chord tones as the root.

Bdim7 (B-D-F-A♭) = Ddim7 = Fdim7 = A♭\G#dim7

The chord is notated with a superscript circle followed by the number 7, e,g, Bdim7 = B^o7 = B-D-F-A♭. I just notate it as “dim7”.

It is called a fully diminished chord because the 7th is diminished:

A# = the major 7th of B
A = the minor 7th, or ♭7, of B
A♭ = the diminished 7th, or ♭♭7. of B

So the fully diminished 7th chord has the diminished 5th and diminished 7th, but the half-diminished 7th chord only has a diminished 5th.

B^o7 = B-D-F-A♭ = 1 – ♭3 – ♭5 – ♭♭7 = 1-m3-d5-d7 = m3 + m3 + m3
B^ø7 = B-D-F-A = 1 – ♭3 – ♭5 – ♭7 = 1-m3-d5-m7 = m3 + m3 + M3

That’s the only difference – the half-diminished \  m7♭5 has the minor 7th, whereas the dim7 has the diminished 7th.

Popular songs with a fully diminished chord

Here are some songs that use the dim7 chord:

Allman Brothers: In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, One Way Out (outro)
Beatles: I’m Happy Just to Dance With You, Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, Blackbird
Bob Dylan: Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat, When I Paint My Masterpiece
Grateful Dead: Dark Star, The Music Never Stopped, Ship of Fools, Tennessee Jed, Deal
Eric Clapton: Mainline Florida
Reverend Gary Davis: Make Believe Stunt
Garth Brooks: Friends in Low Places
Albert Lee: Bullish Boogie
Jerry Reed: The Claw
Silverman’s Folk Song Encyclopedia, Vol. II: 6 songs with a dim7 on pages 21, 27, 30, 43, 63 & 362.

Other scales that build diminished chords

You can also build a diminished triad in the Melodic Minor scale on the 6th and 7th degree, and the Harmonic Minor scale on the 2nd, 4th, 6th & 7th degrees. If you like the diminished sound, here are some other scales that contain a dim triad:

1. Major Bebop on the 2nd, 4th, 6th & the 8th scale notes.
2. Blues Scale on the root.
3. Half-Step Whole-Step Diminished scale (HW Dim) on the root and every other note after the root

The major bebop, and of course the diminished scale, build diminished chords, but most people don’t think of dim chords in the  Blues Scales. It’s not standard to think of that scale as building diminished chords, but the notes are there to build them (dim & m7♭5).

Other diminished chords (m9♭5, m11♭5, m-maj7♭5)

There are three more dim chords that you don’t often see: m9♭5, m11♭5, and m-maj7♭5.

I like the minor 11 flat 5 chord (m11♭5) the best out of these other dim chords. Stevie Wonders uses a m11♭5 in “If You Really Love Me”. The chord formula for a minor eleven flat five chord is 1-♭3-♭5-♭7-11, e.g. Bm11♭5 = B-D-F-A-E.

A minor eleven flat five equals a m6 add 9 on the ♭3 and a 7sus♭9 on the 11 of the chord, and all those chords resolve nicely to the tonic chord. The m6 add9 chord is a staple in jazz, but I’m not so sure about m11♭5 or 7sus♭9 chords.

Bm11♭5 (B-D-F-A-E) = Dm6 add9 (D-F-A-B-E) and E7sus♭9 (E-A-B-D-F) – all resolve nicely to a C major chord.

The next diminished chord is a minor 9 flat five notated as m9♭5 (1-♭3-♭5-♭7-9) and is built from the Melodic Minor scale on the 6th degree. It has the same notes as a 7#5♭9 chord on the 9th.

Bm9♭5 (B-D-F-A-C#) = C#7#5♭9 (C#-F-A-B-D). The major 3rd of C# is E# or F, and the augmented 5th is G## or A.

And the last diminished chord is a dim triad with a major 7th called a “minor major 7 flat five” and notated as m-maj7♭5 (1-♭3-♭5-7).  I assume only jazz guys use this chord. It comes from the Harmonic Major and Harmonic Minor scales. An example is:

Bm-maj7♭5 = B-D-F-A#

I think the m-maj7♭5 chord works best as a leading tone chord to a minor tonic chord. So Bm-maj7♭5 > C minor. Another great V7 chord to get you back to a minor tonic chord is the 7#9 chord on the V, e.g. G7#9 > Cm. If you play a G7#9 without the root it has the same notes as Bm-maj7♭5.

Table of B diminished chords

Here is a table of all the B diminished chords. The columns Equal Chord1 thru 3 are the other chords that contain the same notes.

Diminished chords for guitar

Here are the chord voicings I have for diminished chords, including open versions for the B diminished triad and every other B diminished chord. There are only 5 diminished chord shapes that have a 2 or 3-bar chord shape. Dim chords just don’t make barring them easy.

Take a look at the chord block chart below for all the symbols I use for chords on this site. Refer back to it as you need.

Closed Diminished triad & open B diminished triad guitar chord shapes

In my opinion, the dim triads are not good for strumming but are better played with hybrid picking or fingerpicking.

A good example is are the arpeggios at the opening of “Red House” by Jimi Hendrix. The chords in the opening measures are notated as E7 & Eb7 (if I remember correctly) but it’s actually G#dim & Gdim.

My favorite dim voicings are #’s 1, 2 & 5 and the #2 Bdim is okay.

 

 

Closed diminished 7th’s (m7♭5 & dim7) & open B diminished 7th chord shapes

Let me make some notes on some of the chord shapes below.

1. The #4 m7♭5 chord shape is often taught as a dominant 9th chord which it shouldn’t be. It’s a great substitute for a 9th but it’s a half-diminished 7th chord. Keep that in mind if you ever encounter it.
2. For the 3 dim7 chords, I mark EACH note as the root of the chord, because each note is, or can be, the root.

I like both dim7chords, #1 Bdim7, #’s 1, 3, 4, 5 & 8 m7♭5 and only #1 Bm7♭5.

 

 

 

All other closed and open B diminished chords (m9♭5, m11♭5, m-maj7♭5)

I like most of the chords below except for #2 Bm9♭5. It doesn’t sound good, probably because of the ♭5 ringing out over the open B note. It is included here in case someone finds a use for that dissonance.  Also, I could not find 1 closed voicing for a m9♭5 chord – only open chords.

 

 

How to use the diminished triad and half-diminished chords

As I mentioned, I don’t often use the diminished triad or half-diminished seventh chord often because they are a part of the V7 & V9 chords. Let me show you what I mean:

B dim = B – D – F
G7 = G – (B – D – F)

Bm7♭5 = B – D – F – A
G9 = G – (B – D – F – A)

You can use either chord it in place of the V7 chord before going to the I or i chord. I do often use the D7 shape of a diminished triad in place of a 7 chord, especially in blues tunes.

How to use the dim7 chord

It’s common to use a dim7 chord 1 semitone above the V7 chord – replace G7 with A♭dim7 and it is a substitute for a G7♭9.

Or use it as a leading tone chord, e.g. Bdim7 > Cmaj. You can use the other tritone to go to a whole new key:

B-D-F-A♭ – The B & F in Bdim7 takes you C major, while D & A♭\G# take you to A major. But it can also resolve to C major, E♭ major, F#\G♭ major and A major. It sounds okay to resolve to the keys of E♭ & G♭ but it is a little weak.

But the fully diminished 7th chord will also resolve to the minor versions of those keys: Cm, E♭m, F#\G♭m & Am. Also, try using a dim7 chord a major second above a V7 chord.

Also, try it a 1/2 step above the IV7 chord before going to the I7 chord in blues. For example, a Bdim7 will resolve nicely to F7 as the I chord in F blues: B♭7 -> Bdim7 -> F7.

As a matter of fact, a Bdim7 will resolve to the major version of each chord tone: Bmaj, Dmaj, Fmaj, Abmaj.

Also, try moving one of the notes of the dim7 chord up a half step to a note in the resolving chord. For example, Bdim with the A♭ resolves nicely to A major or minor if the actual A♭ pitch in the chord moves to an A note on the same string 1 step ahead.

Jazz guys are the best at using dim7 and m7♭5 chords so I’ll leave it to them. I just stick with the normal chords of a key that contain the tritone.

The tritone

When it comes down to it, let the tritone be your guide. You can use any chord that has the same tritone that is in the V7 chord. You would use it in place of the V7 to get you back “home” to the I. The B & F in the G7 and Bdim7 chords do just that, as do the chords Dm6, Fmaj7#11, etc.

For a really detailed examination of the resolving tendency of diminished chords, check out Diminished Chord – How To Use on the Simplifying Theory site.

Summary

It’s up to you whether you want to experiment with diminished triads and the various seventh chords. The fully diminished seventh is interesting, but I tend not to bother with the other ones, though I have found some m11♭5 voicings that sound fantastic.

Another option is to switch between B diminished and G dominant 7ths chords because they have the same function. Take a look at my articles: G7 Guitar Chords and Double Extended G7 Chords. Also, look at my Comprehensive List of Chords for all the chords that can be built from popular scales.

Mess around, experiment – there is no harm in learning more than you will ever need.

“It’s your mind, it’s your creativity, it’s your guitar, and most importantly, it’s your music – do what you want to do (just make sure it sounds good)”. ~ quote by Kernix

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