Yamaha PSR-140 manual Intervals of the Scale, Other Chords

SELECTING AND PLAYING STYLES — THE STYLE MODE

WRITING CHORD NAMES

Knowing how to read and write chord names is an easy yet invaluable skill. Chords are often written in a kind of shorthand that makes them instantly recognizable (and gives you the free- dom to play them with the voicing or inversion that you prefer). Once you understand the basic principles of harmony and chords, it’s very simple to use this shorthand to write out the chords of a song.

First, write the root note of the chord in an uppercase letter. If you need to specify sharp or flat, indicate that to the right of the root. The chord type should be indicated to the right as well. Examples for the key of C are shown below.

Major chord	Minor chord	Augmented chord	Diminished chord
C	Cm	Caug	Cdim

For simple major chords, the type is omitted.

One important point: Chords are made up of notes “stacked” on top of each other, and the stacked notes are indicated in the chord name of the chord type as a number — the number being the distance of the note from the root. (See the keyboard diagram below.) For example, the minor 6th chord includes the 6th note of the scale, the major 7th chord has the 7th note of the scale, etc.

The Intervals of the Scale

To better understand the intervals and the numbers used to represent them in the chord name, study this diagram of the C major scale:

Root

Other Chords

Dominant 7th (flatted 7th)

C D E F G A B C D E F

	4th	Octave	11th
3rd	5th	7th	9th
2nd		6th

Csus4 C7 Cm7

5th	4th	Dominant	Major	Dominant	Minor
		7th	chord	7th	chord
CM7		Cm7b5		Cm6		C(9)

7th	Major	Dominant	Diminished	Minor	6th	9th
	chord	7th	chord	chord

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