chord (music)

chord in music, two or more simultaneously sounding pitches. In tonal music the fundamental chord is called the triad. It consists of three pitches, two a perfect fifth apart and a third pitch a major or minor third lower, forming respectively the major or minor triad. However, a triad may instead be diminished or augmented, or may contain dissonant elements such as a seventh. In atonal music, other types of chord formations occur. It is, however, an essential property of a chord that it be conceived as an entity, that its constituent notes "fuse" rather than merely coincide in time.

chord In music, the simultaneous occurrence of three or more musical tones of different pitch. Chords are categorized as anomalous, characteristic, common, inverted or transient. See also harmony

chord 2 †tendon; line joining extremities of an arc XVI; string of musical instrument. refash. of CORD, after L. chorda.