Notes stacked into colour, colours strung into motion.
If a scale is the palette, a chord is a colour mixed from it, three or more notes sounded together, built by stacking thirds, and a progression is a sequence of those colours in motion, the harmonic sentence a song speaks. Chords give a moment its mood; progressions give a piece its journey, setting up tension and releasing it through the pull of the cadence. Together with Scales & Modes and Musical Keys, they are the working grammar of harmony, the same structures pytheory builds in code.
Chords
Triads: Major Triad · Minor Triad · Diminished Triad · Augmented Triad · Suspended Chords · Power Chord
Sevenths: Major Seventh · Dominant Seventh · Minor Seventh · Half-Diminished Seventh · Diminished Seventh · Minor-Major Seventh
Colour & extension: Sixth Chords · Extended Chords
Progressions
The essentials: I-IV-V · ii-V-I · Twelve-Bar Blues · Cadences
Pop & rock: I-V-vi-IV · vi-IV-I-V · Fifties Progression · Royal Road Progression
Deeper cuts: Circle of Fifths Progression · Andalusian Cadence · Pachelbel's Canon · Backdoor Progression
Related
- Chords, the chord folder's own index
- Progressions, the progression folder's own index
- Scales & Modes, the palette chords are drawn from
- Musical Keys, the key a progression lives in
- pytheory: chords and harmony as a Python library
- Music Hub