How to read chord names
Keyriff names the chord you play in a few letters and numbers, like Am, G7 or C/E. Each part of a name says something about the keys you’re holding, and this page takes them one at a time.
You can play most of the keyboards on this page. Press a key to hold it and press it again to let it go.
The letter is the root
The root is the note the chord is built on. A letter on its own means a major chord, so the chord C is the notes C, E and G.
Each key you hold gets a label, as it does in Keyriff with Show chord tones on. R marks the root. The numbers count up the major scale from it, with the root as 1, so E is 3 and G is 5. Add a key or let one go, and the name and the labels change with it.
Minor, diminished and augmented
What comes after the letter says what kind of chord it is. An m means minor, where the 3rd moves down a key, so its label reads b3. A b is a flat: the next key down, black or white. Diminished, written dim, is minor with the 5th lowered too, to b5. Augmented, written aug, keeps the major 3rd and raises the 5th instead, to #5. A # is a sharp, the next key up.
Sevenths
A 7 adds one more key, the 7th. On its own it means the minor 7th, labelled b7, two keys below the next G up, so G7 is G, B, D and F. That’s a major chord with the minor 7th, and its full name is G dominant seventh. A maj7 makes it the major 7th, one key higher, as in Cmaj7. And m7 means a minor chord with the minor 7th, so Dm7 is D, F, A and C.
Chords that swap or add a note
In a sus4 chord the 4th takes the place of the 3rd, so Csus4 is C, F and G. An add9 keeps the major chord and adds the 9th, which is the 2nd an octave up, as in Cadd9. A 6 adds the 6th, so C6 is C, E, G and A.
A slash names the lowest key
A chord’s keys can be stacked in another order. When the root isn’t the lowest, the name gets a slash and then the lowest note. On the C keyboard at the top, let go of C and press the C above it, and C becomes C/E, with the R on the top key. That’s the first inversion. Do the same with E and you get C/G, the second.
Every chord page shows its inversions this way, like C major’s.
Some keys fit more than one name. The app shows its first choice, and with Show other names on, others after “or” where there’s room, so for the keys of Dm7 it offers F6/D as well. Tap that name in the app and the labels count from its root instead.
Roman numerals
A key is a home note and the scale that starts on it. Number that scale’s notes from 1 to 7, starting at home, and a chord’s numeral is its root’s number written as a Roman numeral, like V for 5. Capitals mean a major chord and small letters a minor one, so in the key of C, Dm is ii and G is V. A small circle marks a diminished chord, as in vii° for Bdim, and a circle with a line through it a half-diminished one, a diminished chord with the minor 7th, as in viiø7 for Bm7b5.
The same chord can do different jobs: the C chord is I in the key of C, IV in G and V in F.
In Keyriff, a numeral shows once your practice sheet has a key. Pick one from the Key menu by the chord’s name, or choose Detect from the chords there.
ii V I in C
A chord progression is a run of chords played in order. One like this goes by its numerals, which stay the same in every key. In C, ii V I is Dm, G and C, the chords on the second, fifth and first notes of the C major scale. Open it in Keyriff as a practice sheet and, once you say yes, the app adds it with the key already set.
Its own page, ii V I chord progression in C, links to the other 11 keys.