Because this site is aimed at beginners, the music theory in my articles is simplified and incomplete — but it is not wrong. You might not get away with it at Julliard, but most people just want to learn how to play music for themselves and it is my goal for this website to help them get started. To most people, the Mixolydian mode is irrelevant.

Of course, if you disagree with my explanations, feel free to write your own article on chord construction. That is more constructive than acting like a jerk. I will even link to your article.

I wonder what this guy is going to think of my open heart surgery blog…

Imagine you stumbled on a site that taught people how to perform open heart surgery. The site used pictures, and easy to read diagrams, and really fun mnemonic techniques. Let’s pretend the site had a chart to break down every step involved in performing heart surgery on a living and beating heart.

Here’s what it would read:
1. Cut person open
2. Stab around heart area blindly like a drunk with Parkinson’s (Note: I mean no offense to drunks, or sufferers of Parkinson’s.)
3. Stitch person up with Singer brand sewing machine

That’s how simple, incomplete, and incorrect your description of chord construction is.
Do you know your modes? Do you know all fifteen, yes fifteen! major scales? Do you know how confusing enharmonic tones truly are? If you said yes to any of those questions then you are wrong. Because if you did know any one of those things, the above article would have been (more) correct.

Any musician can tell you that there is a HUGE difference between a Cmaj7 and a C7. The only time you’ll spell C7 as 1-3-5-b7, in reference to scale degrees and not chord tone functions, is if you’re playing in C Mixolydian mode, but you wouldn’t know that. Only someone who knows these things would be able to write an article on chord construction that would be a) simple, b) complete, and c) correct. So please, for the love of God, music, and the integrity of the internet, take a theory class, and pull your head out of your ass.

Yours truly,
Someone who knows what he’s talking about.

When we say: “The 3rd of the chord” we mean the third tone from its major scale, E in the previous example. (So we don’t mean the 3rd note in the chord, but in the scale.)

Nowhere else do you refer to notes as tones. And, the 3rd tone isn’t an extended tone, so I can’t see why it would make a difference to point out the different labels. Am I missing something?