An understanding of chords is vital for any musician – understand chords and you are well on the way to being able to compose and perform some great music.
If music was a cake then melody would be the icing and chords would be the sponge – the melody is the first thing you are drawn to, but chords determine the overall harmonic flavour of the music.
Don’t believe me? Have a listen to this short phrase of music played twice – each version has a different set of chords (called a chord progression) underneath it – same melody, very different flavour!
Sounds cool, doesn’t it?
See how easy it is to change the mood from happy to sad just by changing the chords.
In the next few lessons I’m going to show you what chords are, how to create them and when to use them. It is definitely going to take your musicianship onto a whole new level.
First up, we’re going to have a look at triads.
