Chord (music)

In music and music theory, a chord (from the middle English cord, short for accord) is three or more different notes or pitches sounding simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously, over a period of time. For example, if you simultaneously play any three (or more) keys of a piano, you have just played a chord. Likewise, if you simultaneously play three or more strings of a guitar, you have just played a chord on the guitar. Every chord is given a specific name, based on the notes that constitute the chord and the distances, or intervals, between them.

References

• Dahlhaus, Carl. Gjerdingen, Robert O. trans. (1990). Studies in the Origin of Harmonic Tonality, p.67. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691091358.
• Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music (Musicologie générale et sémiologue, 1987). Translated by Carolyn Abbate (1990). ISBN 0691027145.
• Goldman (1965).