JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Music Theory and Education Chord names

To name chords, you need to know the keys. These "flash cards" are good for folks who have a basic knowledge, but want to know all the key signatures by memory:

http://www.musicards.net/music_flash_cards/key_signature_flashcards.html

Then you will quite often have a choice as to which note in the chord you designate as the root or "name" note. Once you get past triads, every chord can have more than one name note.

You can even find triads that function as chords other than their obvious name note. For example take the triad: C E G. Well that's a good old C major chord, but throw it in first inversion, E G C, and it can function as a minor sixth (E G B C...only without the B). So there's a case to be made that any chord has more than one name.

Again, though, if you're interested in being able to name chords with some traditional precision, you need to learn the keys.

Here's another good tool for someone with a decent basic knowledge, the Key Trainer:

http://www.musictheory.net/trainers/html/id83_en.html

Here's a good, basic explanation of keys for someone starting at the beginning:

http://www.empire.k12.ca.us/capistrano/Mike/capmusic/Key%20Signatures/key_signatures.htm

A graph of scales and triads:
http://jmdl.com/howard/music/keys_scales.html

And here's my explanation of scale and key, relating to the number system, as written for the JPF newsletter some years ago:
http://www.jpfolks.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=388672&page=2#Post388672

Here's a downloadable MP3 tutorial on scales and triads:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=41132&songID=5172396

And here's one on extended chords:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=41132&songID=5172384

Don't lose your keys!

Mike