Lesson Objectives

Introduce minor triads.
Play minor triads in both the right and left hands using whole, half and quarter notes.
Compare major and minor triads in terms of their sound and construction.
Develop two hand co-ordination by playing right hand minor triads and left hand root notes together.
Introduce right hand minor arpeggios using quarter notes.

Minor triads — chords

The keyboard player is often required to play more than one note at a time and quite often several together. A triad, as we have learned before, is the name given to playing three notes together.

Playing more than one note at a time is called a chord.

Lesson 1 introduced playing major triads – the chords of A and G. Each triad contains three notes.

This lesson will concentrate on playing a minor triad. Each triad contains three notes. Only one of them is different from the major triad – the middle one, or ‘third’, as it is called musically.

Next: Introducing minor triads