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D major chord on piano

Find the D major notes, inspect their piano positions, and compare inversions with an audible reference.

Interactive piano keyboardSelected notes: D4 · F♯4 · A4. Gold marks the root when one is known.C4D4E4F4G4A4B4C5C♯4D♯4F♯4G♯4A♯4
Root noteSelected tone

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Compare another chord

C Minor

C4 · E♭4 · G4

Notes and intervals

DegreeNotesSemitones
1D40
3F♯44
5A47

The notes and their roles

D major contains D, F♯ and A. From the root, the semitone offsets are 0, 4, 7. The degree formula 1, 3, 5 describes each member relative to the root, not its order in a particular voicing.

NoteRoleSemitones above root
DRoot0
F♯Major third4
APerfect fifth7

Read this shape accurately

F-sharp is the defining middle note of this chord. Leaving it as F natural changes D major to D minor; A remains the fifth in both.

Change only the third

Hold D and A steady. Lower F♯ by one semitone to F and the quality changes to minor. The root and perfect fifth do not change. This isolates the interval that distinguishes the two triads.

Choose a bass note

The root-position octave example is D4 · F♯4 · A4. Inversions put a different member in the bass while retaining D as the root. The table gives pitch-class order; move the leading notes up an octave as needed to keep each example ascending.

PositionNotes from the bassBass
Root positionD · F♯ · AD
First inversionF♯ · A · DF♯
Second inversionA · D · F♯A

A short listening check

Play D major together, then as separate notes. Name the major third before looking at the display. Repeat in first inversion and check that F♯ is the bass while D remains the root.

  1. Choose the displayed root and quality in the chord explorer.
  2. Compare root position with one inversion at the same tempo.
  3. Save both examples in a named practice collection, or export a reference with note names.

Sources and methods