music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

, the third factor of a chord is the

note Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened versi ...

or pitch two

scale degrees In music theory, the scale degree is the position of a particular note on a scale relative to the tonic—the first and main note of the scale from which each octave is assumed to begin. Degrees are useful for indicating the size of intervals ...

above the

root In vascular plants, the roots are the plant organ, organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often bel ...

or tonal center. When the third is the

bass note In music theory, the bass note of a chord or sonority is the lowest note played or notated. If there are multiple voices it is the note played or notated in the lowest voice (the note furthest in the bass.) Three situations are possible: # ...

, or lowest note, of the expressed triad, the chord is in

first inversion The first inversion of a chord is the voicing of a triad, seventh chord, or ninth chord in which the third of the chord is the bass note and the root a sixth above it. Walter Piston, ''Harmony'', fifth edition, revised and expanded by Mar ...

Use

Conventionally, the third is third in importance to the root and fifth, with the third in all

primary triad In music, a primary triad is one of the three triads, or three-note chords built from major or minor thirds, most important in tonal and diatonic music, as opposed to an auxiliary triad or secondary triad. Each triad found in a diatonic key ...

s (I, IV, V and i, iv, v) being either major or minor. In

jazz chord Jazz chords are chords, chord voicings and chord symbols that jazz musicians commonly use in composition, improvisation, and harmony. In jazz chords and theory, most triads that appear in lead sheets or fake books can have sevenths added to t ...

s and theory, the third is required due to it determining chord quality. The third in both

major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

and

augmented chord An augmented triad is a chord (music), chord, made up of two major thirds (an augmented fifth). The term ''augmented triad'' arises from an augmented triad being considered a major chord whose top note (fifth) is raised. When using Chord names ...

s is major (E in C) and the third in both minor and diminished chords is minor (E in C).

Tenth

In music and

music theory Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the "Elements of music, ...

, a tenth is the note ten scale degrees from the root of a chord and also the interval between the root and the tenth. Since there are only seven degrees in a

diatonic scale In music theory a diatonic scale is a heptatonic scale, heptatonic (seven-note) scale that includes five whole steps (whole tones) and two half steps (semitones) in each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by eith ...

the tenth degree is the same as the

mediant In music, the mediant (''Latin'': "being in the middle") is the third scale degree () of a diatonic scale, being the note halfway between the tonic and the dominant.Benward & Saker (2003), p.32. In the movable do solfège system, the mediant no ...

and the interval of a tenth is a compound third.

Use

Tenth

See also

Notes

Further reading