

The last major chord we’ll look at is an F major chord. If you dissect the standard open D major chord shape you’ll see that the shape is made up of only these three notes with the D repeated once. These three notes make up our D major chord. Using the major scale formula, we’ll write out a D major scale and circle the first, third, and fifth notes. Let’s look at a standard G major chord shape so you can visualize it.įor our D major chord we can employ the exact same strategy. As long as those three notes are there, then any combination, including repetition of one or more of those notes, results in a G major chord. Here’s a G major scale with the first, third, and fifth notes circled.Īll you have to do from here is combine the three circled notes to create your G major triad. For the first example, we’ll use G Major. Once you’ve spelled out the major scale for the major chord you want to make, you need to locate the first, third, and fifth notes.

If you don’t know how to spell out a major scale, be sure to watch our Guitar Music Theory Crash Course. If you know your basic music theory for guitar then this shouldn’t be too hard for you. This system begins by spelling out a major scale for the chord you want to make. The first method you’ll learn for building a major chord is called the major scale method. That means when building a chord, your focus should simply be on building the triad. It doesn’t matter how many repetitions of a note a chord has and these repeated notes only lend themselves to making the chord richer or thicker. This is because the chord shape includes three G notes, two B notes, and one D note. But when you play a G major chord you’re strumming all six strings of your guitar. When a major or minor guitar chord contains more than three notes, it’s simply adding repetition to the notes that already exist in the triad.įor example, a G major triad contains a G, B, and D note. This is because they contain only three different notes. Major and minor chords in their simplest form are often referred to as triads. The first step to understanding how major chords are made is to get familiar with the term “triad”. Major chords are a great place to start since they are the most common chords you will encounter as a beginner guitar player.
