What Do All of Those Chord Names Mean? Our Expert Guide

Do you sometimes get the fear when you’re learning a new song and you see some bizarre chord names on the sheet music? Do you tend to just go with the main note name and ignore all the other bits around it? You wouldn’t be the only one!

But I think you deserve to dominate this area of music. You deserve to have that special power granted by a mastery of chords. In less than ten minutes, I reckon I can have you understanding what all of those chord names not only mean, but how they relate to what you’re doing. You’ll be able to hear, understand and perform complex chords, which will open up your enjoyment of music. You’ll be able to play rich, beautiful, exotic chords and even better, you’ll intrinsically understand what you’re doing.

Sound good? Grab a guitar for reference, because it’ll sink in faster. Let’s do it!

In simple terms, a major chord sounds bright and happy, with an optimistic vibe. A major chord uses the major 3rd note, which is the third note from the major scale, to get its brighter sound. A simple major chord is made from a root, major 3rd and a fifth. In the key of A, it would be A, C#, and E.

There is one note of difference between a major chord and its equivalent minor variant. A minor chord uses the minor third note (the third note in the minor scale) to get its more serious sound, rather than the third note of the major scale. It seems reductive to call major chords ‘happy’ and minor chords ‘sad’ because of course there’s a lot more to it than just that, but in general terms, those are the noted distinctions. In A, you’d want A, C and E to create an A minor (written as Am) triad.

There are three types of 7th chord, and this is the first. We tend to just say A7 for example, instead of A dominant 7, but both are correct. Anyway, a dominant 7 chord has a very noticeable, angular sound, and in musical theory it's known as ‘harmonically unstable’. It’s a major chord made with a root, major 3rd, perfect 5th and a minor (or flattened) seventh. This gives the ‘tritone’ sound which gives the chord its impact. In the key of A, an A7 is A, C#, E and a G.

The major 7th - or just maj7 - chord differs from the dominant 7th by only one note. I’m sure you’ve guessed it, but it’s the use of a major 7th that makes this chord different. It has a root, a major 3rd, a perfect fifth and a major 7th.

The major 7th has a very distinctive sound, and it reminds me of two things: Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon (it’s all over it), and the Willy Wonka tune about being in a world of pure imagination. It’s dreamy, it’s lovely, and it’s very useful. The major 7th note is one semitone away from the octave (of the root), so that slightly unfinished feel is because it is close to being resolved, but isn’t.

In the key of A, your Amaj7 looks like this: A, C#, D and a G#.

So, the minor 7 is the minor version of the dominant 7, so both of the ‘notable notes’ - the 3rd and 7th - are minor. Minor 7th chords are used in loads of songs, so I expect you’ll already have been finding this one for years. If you are in A, you’ll want A, C, E and G.

Diminished chords are tricky sounding blighters, and for that reason are normally used to link different sections of a song together. Diminished chords sound dissonant in a jazzy way, and are represented on chord charts by a little circle next to the root note.

Make a diminished chord with a root, a minor 3rd and a lowered 5th. The changing of the 5th by a semitone (making it diminished, flattened, lowered or any other term) is what gives this chord its edge. In the key of a, an Adim requires an A, a C and an Eb. Guitarists tend to play diminished chords on the higher strings, since it’s pretty tough to make those intervals work on the lower strings.

Augmented chords, known as ‘aug’ or written with a ‘+’ after the root, are almost like a more pleasant version of the diminished chord. They are used in similar ways, to link sections of songs together, though of course that isn’t a rule. I feel like they have an almost science-fiction or movie score feel, as the raised 5th adds a tension that is mysterious rather than dark sounding. The augmented chord is made with a root, a major 3rd and an augmented (or raised up by a semitone) 5th. 

Sticking with the key of A as always, an A+ uses these notes: A, C# and an F.

Suspended chords get their distinctly open, ethereal feel because they remove the major/minor tonality. You get two main versions of a suspended chord - a suspended 2nd and a suspended 4th - and these are generally written with the root note and then ‘sus2’ or ‘sus4’.

So, you are replacing the third here, which is the note that normally tells us if a chord is major or minor. A sus2 chord means you replace the 3rd with the second note in the scale (in A, we are losing the 3rd for a ‘B’ note) and with a sus4, the 3rd gets swapped for a 4th. In A, that would be a D. Both sus2 and sus4 chords ring out and ‘hang in the air’, creating atmosphere, and lead the subsequent chords in a certain direction.

Some people confuse this with a sus4 (see above), but there is one huge difference. The sus4 chord loses the 3rd altogether (it suspends it) and the add4…you’ve guessed it…adds it in addition to the 3rd. So, you’ll have both the 3rd and the 4th notes in an add4 chord. 

In our A example, an Aadd4 uses these notes: A, C#, D and E. Yes, it looks quite unusual on a guitar, but it sounds great!

When you see a chord with the numbers 9, 11 or 13 after them, figuring out what to play is much simpler than you might think. You are simply required to add in an extra note, and the number denotes the interval. 

Since the main scales we use (which are called diatonic, and that’s a story for another day) have 7 notes - the 8th being the repeated root note an octave higher - just look at these new numbers as being higher octave versions of notes from the scale. For example, a 9th is actually just a 2nd note one octave higher (7+2=9); an 11th is a 4th, one octave up; and finally a 13th is a 6th note, one octave higher. 

Extended chords add flavour and colour to a chord, but actually aren’t necessarily changing anything about the tonality.

My final explanation for you today is inverted chords. Have you played songs where you make a regular open D chord, for example, but then use your thumb to play a low F# note on the 2nd fret of the E string? Yeah, you know that one, right? This is an inversion. It’s inverted because, even though it’s a D chord, we don’t have D at the bottom as the lowest note. F# is one of the notes that makes a D chord anyway, we just don’t tend to stick it in so low, so doing that is ‘inverting’ the chord. It’s just a different way to play something familiar.

So why do it? Well, in our example there, if you are playing a normal D, and then want to go to a G chord, that low F# provides a natural and elegant path that sounds very musical. The sound of the F# leads you from the d into the G.

You see this being used a lot with the piano, where the right hand stays on a chord but the left changes the bass note. Listen closely to Life on Mars? by David Bowie and you’ll hear loads of that. We also call these ‘slash chords’ simply because of how we’d write that chord name. It looks like this: D/F#. It’s in classical music, musicals and jazz mostly, but can be useful everywhere.

How many of the above chords did you try out? Can you already hear those special colours and flavours emerging? Understanding the properties of different chord types - and having artistic opinions on them - was a major breakthrough for me in my own learning. I hope I’ve passed some useful stuff onto you today. Truly, this is the tip of a wonderful iceberg, so take this info and run with it: you never know what kind of magic you can make until you learn the ‘spells’ and apply them to your music! Good luck!