Ok, so last week we looked at how to find the major scale from the chromatic scale. This week we're going to look at how the major scale can affect what chords work well together.
First of all we need to know this pattern:
Major minor minor Major Major minor diminished
When this is written down as chords your Major chords will have nothing next to them, e.g. C, F, G
Whereas a minor chord will have a small 'm' next to it.
These are the types of chords we will apply to the individual notes of the major scale,
so starting with C Major (C D E F G A B C) we should have:
C Dm Em F G Am Bdim
We now know that all of these chords will fit into the key of C Major.
This pattern will work in any key, so if we look at G Major (G A B C D E F# G) we should have:
G Am Bm C D Em F#dim
And we know that this chords will fit nicely into the key of G Major
Once that concept is clear we apply a number to each chord using roman numerals (I will explain why in a future lesson)
So in the key of C Major
C D E F G A B C
I II III IV V VI VII
A very common chord progression that you will find in popular music is I V IV
In the key of C Major this would be:
|C / / / | G / / / | F / / / |
This can be applied to any key, so for example a I V IV in G Major would be:
|G / / / | D / / / |C / / / |
Obviously you can use various combinations of the chords, but this is just a very easy way of finding chords that do work well together and just because this rule exists doesn't mean you should follow it all of the time though, sometimes other chords work very well in place of certain parts of this pattern, this is meant to be just a simple guideline to making what I like to call 'Safe chord progressions'
First of all we need to know this pattern:
Major minor minor Major Major minor diminished
When this is written down as chords your Major chords will have nothing next to them, e.g. C, F, G
Whereas a minor chord will have a small 'm' next to it.
These are the types of chords we will apply to the individual notes of the major scale,
so starting with C Major (C D E F G A B C) we should have:
C Dm Em F G Am Bdim
We now know that all of these chords will fit into the key of C Major.
This pattern will work in any key, so if we look at G Major (G A B C D E F# G) we should have:
G Am Bm C D Em F#dim
And we know that this chords will fit nicely into the key of G Major
Once that concept is clear we apply a number to each chord using roman numerals (I will explain why in a future lesson)
So in the key of C Major
C D E F G A B C
I II III IV V VI VII
A very common chord progression that you will find in popular music is I V IV
In the key of C Major this would be:
|C / / / | G / / / | F / / / |
This can be applied to any key, so for example a I V IV in G Major would be:
|G / / / | D / / / |C / / / |
Obviously you can use various combinations of the chords, but this is just a very easy way of finding chords that do work well together and just because this rule exists doesn't mean you should follow it all of the time though, sometimes other chords work very well in place of certain parts of this pattern, this is meant to be just a simple guideline to making what I like to call 'Safe chord progressions'
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