Tricky Triads

Starter

This simple starter develops students’ understanding of triads. It is advisable to have a piano or keyboard to hand, to encourage students to listen to the triads, and to check their answers aurally, so they become familiar with the sound of a major and a minor triad.

First, students may need help with discovering what triads are. If so, they could use the following preliminary handout:

Tricky Triads: Introduction

If you wish to work with the whole class, display the following presentation. Each slide presents a different root note, on which a triad can be built. With the students’ help, you could add the missing notes in each slide:

Tricky Triads

Alternatively, organise the class into small groups, or ask students to work on their own. Distribute the following handout for them to work through, and then go through the answers as a class:

Tricky Triads

Answers

The answers to the starter activity are: C major: CEG; F major: FAC; D major: DFA; B major: BDF; E major: EGB;
F major: FAC.

Plenary

Write the notes of a triad on the board. You may wish to use root position, first inversion or second inversion triads. Play the chord on the keyboard. Students have to identify the names of the triads that you play. For example, if you wrote the notes A, C, E on the board, students would have to identify that these three notes always constitute the chord of A major.