Stacking Triads
How is a triad built? Click through different roots, watch three notes stack up in thirds, then press ARP to hear the chord one note at a time.
A single note is a dot; several notes sounding at once make a chord. Play first: click through the roots and listen, watch the stack slide as a whole, then press ARP to pull the chord apart note by note.
Skip one, take one
Building a triad takes one sentence: pick a note of the scale as the root, skip the next note and take the one after, then skip again and take again. In C major: start on C, skip D and take E, skip F and take G. Stack C, E, and G together and you have a C major triad.
Two thirds inside the stack
The distance you get from skip-one-take-one is called a third. So a triad is really a tower of two thirds: root up to the middle note is a third, middle note up to the top is another third. That is exactly what the stack view draws — move to any root and the whole tower relocates, but the spacing between floors stays put.
Block chord vs arpeggio
Press all three notes at once and you get the full chord sound. Play them one by one from the bottom with ARP and you get an arpeggio — the chord in slow motion. When you are writing an accompaniment or figuring out a song by ear, arpeggios help you hear exactly which notes are hiding inside a chord.
Quiz
How is a triad built?