Chords

[Tedjuh]

Hello all.

To make life easier I’m working on a Chorder inside an arpeggiator for my panel. Basically you select a root note and which chord you want it to be. So far so good. Now I’ve searched the internet, wikipedia and those “piano learning” sites. I even rented some books about chords and downloaded some apps but I can’t find out a definitive way of building chords.

Too many variations. Too many differences in Chord-naming. One is talking about delta chords. The other one is talking about half diminished. Another (comprehensive) book doesn’t even mention half diminished chords, let alone delta chords. And so on. In other words: I’m confused.

So I was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction about the right approach. Are there rules on how to build chords or not? Like a Major Chord = Root note + 4 (semitones) + 7 (semitones). And Minor = Root + 3 (semitones) + 7 (semitones). Which chords are out there and how to build them?

Tedjuh

[BillFM]

Hello Tedjuh.

Below is the book I use for everything you mentioned about chord construction (and for scales). It’s a very easy read. Lots of illustrations of each chord. I paid $4.49 at a used book store (10 years ago).

“The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Piano Chords” by Karen Berger
ISBN 1592574599, 9781592574599

One thing about chords (and I’m no expert), you can play the notes of a chord is any order. It’s referred to as inversion. This leads to efficient movements of your fingers on the keyboard. And, the notes of a chord don’t even have to be played within the same octave. This is all detailed in the book.

Sounds like an interesting panel. Good luck with it.

[BillFM]

I’m not sure why, but after pasting the Amazon book weblink, the picture of the book took its place. So, I’ve broken the weblink into 2 lines. You can copy paste them together to arrive at Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com
/Pocket-Idiots-Guide-Piano-Chords/dp/1592574599

Hopefully, that works.
Bill

[dnaldoog]

A good starting point (if it was me doing it) would be to look up the chord voicings used in another sequencer. In my case I am familiar with the Yamaha QY20. On page 197 of the manual there are explanations of how the chords are formed. Somebody in the know would have chosen those chords as the most usable or popular I would guess.

I won’t post the url to the manual in case the post gets frozen, but it is here:

synthmanuals.com
/manuals
/yamaha
/qy20
/owners_manual
/qy20e1.pdf

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