Yamaha PSR-275 Owner's Manual - Page 43

Selecting and Playing Styles 4 Play the chord. Play the chord (as indicated in the display) in the chord area of the keyboard. The chord name flashes in the display when the correct notes are held down. (Inversions for many of the chords are also recognized.) Dict. 001 Flashes when correct notes are held. Indicates notes to be played. To leave the Dictionary function, press the [Dict.] button again. What is a Chord The simple answer: Three or more notes played simultaneously is a chord. (Two notes played together is an "interval" - an interval being the distance between two different notes. This is also referred to as a "harmony.") Depending on the intervals between the three or more notes, a chord can sound beautiful or muddy and dissonant. The organization of notes in the example at left - a triad chord - produces a pleasant, harmonious sound. Triads are made up of three notes and are the most basic and common chords in most music. In this triad, the lowest note is the "root." The root is the most important note in the chord, because it anchors the sound harmonically by determining its "key" and forms the basis for how we hear the other notes of the chord. The second note of this chord is four semitones higher than the first, and the third is three semitones higher than the second. Keeping our root note fixed and changing these notes by a semitone up or down (sharp or flat), we can create four different chords. Major chord (ex. C) Minor chord (ex. Cm) Augmented chord (ex. Caug) Diminished chord (ex. Cdim) Minor 3rd Major 3rd Major 3rd Minor 3rd Major 3rd Major 3rd Minor 3rd Minor 3rd Keep in mind that we can also change the "voicing" of a chord - for example, change the order of the notes (called "inversions"), or play the same notes in different octaves - without changing the basic nature of the chord itself. Inversion examples for the key of C G E C G E E C G C 43