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[Piano] What's this called?

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october1983:
see also: power chords

Thrillho:
Doesn't that mean that power chords aren't technically chords?

sean:
you just need three notes for a chord. like, c c e would be a chord.

what would the technical term for a two note chord be then paul, because technically i know you need 3 notes for a chord (also im not actually making things up i am currently pursuing a music degree.)

october1983:
A power chord is a a chord-like pseudo-triad! And a two-note chord is a dyad.

pwhodges:
It seems that usage varies:

Chord:
"A group of (typically* three or more) notes sounded together" (various Oxford dictionaries);
"The simultaneous sounding of two or more notes" (Grove Concise Dictionary of Music);
"Any combination of notes simultaneously heard can be called a Chord" (Scholes Oxford Companion to Music).

A Triad is a chord of three notes, being (to simplify) the root, third and fifth of a scale; I have seen the analogous Dyad used for a chord of two notes, but not often.  More frequently, just the interval is mentioned, as in saying that a piece ends with an open fifth - Hindemith, for instance, follows this usage in his "Craft of Musical Composition" (page 57, for example).  Harmonically, of course, two-note chords are essentially uninteresting, not least because they have no inversions.

* Note, "typically", not "necessarily"

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