 Hi everyone, this is Jason here from Nathaniel and in this lesson Let's learn how you can form pretty much any one of the 12 available major and minor chords on the piano Let's get started. I'm gonna begin first of all with explaining how these chords are built They are built using three notes what we call as a triad. So for example, this is how a D major chord sounds Okay, so an F minor chord sounds The first thing you'll realize is the major chord has a very happy positive or an inspiring or Uplifting quality while the minor chord is a more sad or a melancholic or a serious quality right while a major chord More hopeful right so the sound is very unique for both chords And when you're forming these chords, you need to remember that there are going to be 12 of each 12 major chords and 12 minor chords. Okay, but let's build it step by step So let's start off by forming the D major chord and even the D minor chord So I'm just picking D as my root and the first note of any chord is obvious It's the name of the chord that is D. So D major D minor will obviously have D and then There is one more note, which is in common to both chords. So that is the fifth D to A Okay, now, how do I form the fifth one way to form it is you could go up five scale steps If you know D major scale You can go to the fifth and you get yourself the A Another way is to remember the circle of fifths, which is pretty much a circle of perfect fifths If you count it in a clockwise direction and the circle of fifths has a lot of other applications as well It's not only to learn chords It's it helps you build a lot of things in music cadences Scales key signatures and a lot of things. So there is a high value to learn that circle really well Write it down regularly. That's the best way to get these things into your head So using the circle of fifths or using a scalar motion You arrive at the perfect fifth and also be aware of its sound Try to get it immediately don't go Okay, so let the sound also enter into your ear. So you go So that's your perfect fifth Common for both the D major sound and the D minor sound Okay, so now coming to the other note the other note for a D major chord is going to be the third Which is in this case since it's a D major chord. We call the third a major third Okay, so the major third of D will be F sharp Let me first show you how you can form it in a scalar way It's three steps from the root. That's why we also say third or major third D E F sharp, okay, however you can even move in chromatic steps And then get to the F sharp over four step motion for four chromatic steps motion So you go D to D sharp, which is one step D sharp to E Which is two steps E to F three steps F to F sharp So you're moving this chromatic zigzag like manner on the piano So one two three four And you arrive at your major third and as you do this for more and more chords It'll be highly advisable to write this down write down the major thirds from pretty much any root Write down the perfect fifths pretty much from any root and you got yourself pretty much the major chords So D major again D. It's fifth A it's third F sharp And you got yourself the D major chord and another way to remember this visually on the piano Would be it's a white note then a black note and then a white note, right? So you can remember this I Guess as a WBW chord white black white chord So you get a kind of a shape on your hand or a hand hold if you will which may actually be common for some other chords For example, if I take a major, okay, I'm taking a What is a fifth from a E? A E and now I get my third which is the C sharp There we go major third. So this is the same shape as playing D major. Isn't it D major? A major and you will also discover that when you do E major E major also has the same shape and what's also cool is you use them pretty much in very similar scales Like for example in a major scale you get to use the a major chord the D major chord and The E major chord right so we figured out now how to form pretty much any major chord It's the root the perfect fifth and then you have the major third in the middle now coming to a minor chord So let me go back to the root D And I'm gonna play you the fifth again the perfect fifth to and The middle note is going to be the minor third In this case the F now you could get the F if you know the D minor scale It's the third note of the minor scale, but another way to get it is Three steps from the root or three chromatic steps one two three You get yourself the minor third now another way in which people remember a minor chord is to go down one step from the major third and That also is a way to get the minor chord however with all this which I've said it's advisable to write it down Play it and then bank it right and also as I said earlier find chords with the similar shapes So for example, I have D minor DFA, which is white note white note white note Now which is another minor chord which has white note white note white note maybe a minor A C E a major would have been AC sharpie and a minor would be A C E And then you could even do E minor Okay, so it's very important to know when it comes to shape wise you have Trials of chords which fall all under the same shape So if you take major chords again, you have white black white majors WBW majors a D major E major these are all white black white majors Then you have triple white majors or all white. That's C major F major G major You could group them together and then you have black white black majors. You have to learn a flat major D flat major and E flat major you see the shape of all these three chords Identical right So you could remember it that way You can visualize it also better when you play it on the piano and then you will have three Cords or three major chords as well as three minor chords which have a unique shape, right? Which are misnomers if you will one will be all black chord all black note chord That's F sharp major or G flat major Then you have to deal with the B's as I call them the B flat major Which is black white white then the B major which is White black black so B flat and B Let's go through that all over again. What are all my all-white major chords C major F major G major what are all my white black white major chords? D major E major A major what are all my black white black chords? A flat major D flat major and E flat major right and then you have the misnomers or the unique chords which are F sharp major which is all black B flat major and B major Coming to the minor chord shapes you will have again the all-white minors which you have to remember as A minor D minor E minor repeat A minor D minor E minor So you put them together in one sort of category and well, you could also use them together Something about the chord shapes or the piano chord shapes is very musical, you know The same shapes tend to be used together So it's good to bracket them into shapes at least when you're starting off with forming the chords coming to the white black white minors C minor F minor G minor repeat C minor F minor G minor Okay, then you have the black white black minors which we call as C sharp minor G sharp minor and F sharp minor Repeat that C sharp minor G sharp minor F sharp minor see how they also work well together And then of course you have the unique minor chords which are you have to remember now one by one D sharp minor or E flat minor All black and then remember the unique ones are always going to be that both the B's you have B minor Which is white white black and you have B flat minor which is black black white unique shapes Okay, so those are the shapes of all your major and minor chords so To conclude there are a few ways to forming the major and minor chords First remember that all of these chords have three notes. We also call them as triads. There are 12 in total That's pretty much all you will ever have to learn and to form them The first thing is to acknowledge the sound a major chord is built using the root and a perfect fifth The minor chord is also built using a root and a perfect fifth The in-between note or the third note the third has two qualities You have the major third for the major chord and you have the minor third for the minor chord Okay, to get the major third you can get it in a very crude way chromatically four steps one two three four And the minor third you can get again in a crude way chromatically three steps one two three so if ever you're stuck you can pretty much move chromatically and After you've got the thirds and after you formulated the chord write it down and Figure out the shape how your hand feels on the piano more food for thought will be what happens when you're trying to change Cords or build a chord progression with whatever major chords then a major then a minor and Different chords so for that we need to start looking at chord shapes or chord inversions I have done a lot of lessons on chord inversions. In fact, we have a playlist on chord inversions I'd advise you to check that out. This lesson was just to figure out the notes of these chords This lesson was pretty much just to form the notes of both the major and the minor chords Which are 12 in number and what I've tried to do is also make a chart Which you could download at our patreon page where all my handwritten notes are available Where I've pretty much charted down all of what I said group the chords by shape Figured out the intervals written it down. So do get yourself a copy by heading over to the link in the description Again, this is Jason here from Nathaniel School of Music Hope you guys found the lesson useful and if you did please like the video share the video Subscribe to our channel if you haven't already and hit the bell for regular notifications. Cheers