A Minor Chord is different from most chords in the way they are built and the way they sound.
These chords sounds like the name implies, minor. A major chord sounds pretty and nice but minors sounds strange and mysterious.
These chords are used a lot in contemporary music. They aren’t used as much as major chords but without them all songs would sound the same. Adding these chords gives your music that deep mysterious sound and gives it depth that using only major chords doesn’t have.
Building A Minor Chord
If you can build a Major chord than you can build a Minor Chord. Go to my major Chord section if you need help with building major chords.
These chords are made the same way as major chords except with one difference. Instead of using the third note in the scale you minor the third note.
To minor a note means to lower it by a half step. This means you find the third note in the scale and move it to the left one note.
So if your third note is a G then move it one note to the left and now you have an F#.
Lets do an example to help you understand.
To find C Minor you need to first find the C major chord. Based on the lessons on finding major chords we know an C Major Chord is made up of C, E, and G. The C is the root, E is the third and G is the fifth.
Now all you have to do is move the third (the E) one note to the left to make it minor. So now the E is a Eb. So C Minor is made up of C, Eb, and G. Look at the image for reference.
Move the third note to left to make it minor.
Working in all keys
This process will work for every chord. So if you want to fin a Gb minor you just find the Major chord and move the middle note to left and you have made it minor.
Like everything on the piano and keyboard you will need to know all of these chords in every key. Some minor chords are going to be hard to play or awkward. This is ok. It takes time and practice to become a great piano player.
Don’t make the mistake of learning the majors and minors that you need to play your favorite song and not learning them in all the keys. What will happen is you will want to learn a new song and it will be in a different key then you will have to re-learn the chords again.
Take the time now to learn all your major and mior chords so you can play almost every song that you want.
Need more help learning chords? Learn almost every chord you’ll ever need with our Piano Chord Encyclopedia.