Week 9 — Readings & Resources · Triads

Course: MUS 156 Music Theory I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 9 of 16 (Week 9) · two sessions per week
Your primary reading is the Week 9 chapter (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer.

How to use this page

Everything here is a link to an external resource — open it in your browser, the way you'd open any link a friend sent you. Nothing to buy, download, or sign into.

The load is light on purpose: eight links, grouped by the unit's three big ideas plus a drill room. One item per group is plenty; the drill room is the sleeper hit — five minutes a day there beats one long cram hour. If a link disagrees with the course on a convention (some sites fold inversions into their first chords page, or use ° and + where our symbols say dim and aug), the course convention in the Week 9 chapter wins — that's not the site being wrong so much as the field having dialects, and this course speaks one dialect consistently.

① Building triads and the four qualities

Maps to the chapter's stack and four flavors sections, and Session 1's Segments 2–3.

• Triads — Open Music Theory — the stack, the members, all four qualities, and chord-symbol notation, with staff examples throughout. Note their scope choice matches ours: this page saves inversions for a later chapter, exactly as our unit saves them for its last section. (reading, ~12 min)
• Introduction to Chords — musictheory.net — triads assembled click by click: thirds stacking, qualities appearing one accidental at a time. A good first stop if you'd rather watch the snowman build itself than read about it. (interactive lesson, ~6 min)

② One key, seven chords

Maps to the chapter's harmonizing the major scale and minor's grid sections, and Session 1's Segments 4–5.

• Diatonic Triads — musictheory.net — the key harmonizing itself, animated: a triad on every scale degree, with the quality pattern emerging as it climbs. Watch it once for major, then think through where minor's upgraded V and vii° come from — the lesson stops where our harmonic-minor discussion begins. (interactive lesson, ~5 min)

③ Inversions and the figures

Maps to the chapter's same chord, different floor section, and Session 1's Segment 6.

• Inversion and Figured Bass — Open Music Theory — why the figures are 6 and 6/4, where the shorthand comes from, and worked identification examples. It goes a little further into figured-bass realization than we need this week; read for the triad figures and skim the rest guilt-free. (reading, ~12 min)
• Triad Inversion — musictheory.net — root position, first, and second inversion animated one bass note at a time. Five minutes here and the re-stack-in-thirds move becomes reflex. (interactive lesson, ~5 min)

The drill room

The studio's speed, available all week. These three are the same skills as the studio rounds.

• Chord Identification — musictheory.net — it flashes a spelled chord, you name root and quality. The eyes-side of the studio's sort; set it to triads only and let it run. (practice tool, unlimited)
• Chord Construction — musictheory.net — the reverse drill: it names a chord, you build it note by note. This is the assignment's exact skill — spelling the call. (practice tool, unlimited)
• Chord Ear Training — musictheory.net — it plays a chord, you name the quality. This is the studio's opening round with headphones on; start with major/minor only, then add diminished and augmented once those two stop hiding from each other. (practice tool, unlimited)

Pick-one quick path (≈15 min total)

Short on time this week? You've read the chapter — then do exactly these two:

1. Run Chord Ear Training in the drill room for five minutes, major and minor only.
2. Click through Triad Inversion in group ③.

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move pages. If a link fails, tell Professor Hemsworth and lean on the chapter in the meantime — it covers everything the quiz covers.