Color & Tension: Advanced Chord Concepts
Plain major and minor triads are just the start. Add, remove, or alter one note and a chord starts to create tension, motion, and mood. Every chord here is a triad with one small change — learn to build each one, play a moveable shape, hear what it does, and you will start to recognise them everywhere.
Concepts
These chords are about tension and resolution, not just new shapes. Sus and augmented chords are unstable and want to resolve; 7th chords pull toward a target.
The resolution drill: sus4 → major, V7 → I, I → I⁺ → IV. Play each and listen for the "pull."
Decorate, don’t replace: take a I–IV–V you already know and add a sus4 before a chord lands, swap the V for a V7, or slip an augmented chord between I and IV.
A whole 12-bar blues is nothing but dominant 7th chords — the fastest way to get this sound under your fingers (see Level 4).
Graduation
Take any I–IV–V you know and decorate it: a sus4 leading into a chord, the V played as a V7, and an augmented chord passing between two of them.