{"id":101,"date":"2018-08-10T11:25:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T18:25:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2023-01-10T10:23:13","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T18:23:13","slug":"how-major-and-minor-chords-affect-emotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pianote.com\/blog\/how-major-and-minor-chords-affect-emotion\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do Major And Minor Chords Affect Emotion?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the simplest of terms, the emotional center of music comes from one of two places: the major chord or the minor chord. <\/span>Bold statement huh? Hear me out, because this just might change your life and your connection to music and how you learn songs.  <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re listening to music and things feel happy and mellow, you\u2019re probably listening to a song that mostly uses <\/span>major <\/strong>chords to create that feeling.  An example of a major triad would be the first chord most piano players learn: a <\/span>C major triad (C – E – G)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you play that chord a few times along with some other major chords and you\u2019ve got a pretty happy little jam going on.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Once you\u2019re tired of listening to that chord, try contrasting it with this one: The <\/span>A minor triad (A – C – E). <\/strong>This chord is known as the <\/span>relative minor <\/strong>of <\/span>C major. <\/strong>That means that the <\/span>C major <\/strong>chord and the <\/span>A minor <\/strong>chord are kind of like siblings: very different yet quite similar in a lot of respects.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what does this all mean? Well, it means that ANY chord you can think of has a relative major or minor version as well! This is HUGE for anyone looking to make a creative alternate version of any song at all! <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To show this off, let\u2019s look at “Hey Jude”<\/a> in the major key. The verses of this song are made up of the chords <\/span>F – C <\/strong>and <\/span>Bb. <\/strong>And for every chord, there\u2019s a minor version that will completely reshape the melody.  Let\u2019s take a look at this by first determining how to find the minor notes so we can build the minor chords.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>