I hope everyone had a great Labor Day yesterday.  It’s back to the grind today, so I bring you all another installment in the series “10 Things Every Musician Should Know“.  We’ve established how to build a scale using the correct pattern of whole steps and half steps.  Then we determined how the pattern worked using accidentals (sharps/flats) and which accidentals are present in each key.  The next logical step is to build triads (chords) from each scale degree.

In Western music, our music is most commonly based on Tertian Harmony, meaning that our harmonies (chords) are built in “thirds”.  Triads are three-note chords ascending in thirds.  If we’re building a C Major triad, we’ll build our triad from the scale degrees 1, 3, and 5 in C Major, or in this case C, E, and G.  We could dig way deeper into the theory behind thirds, but that would take too long for this particular post.  If you have any questions, please post a question in the comments section, and I’ll be glad to answer it for you.

Now that we know a little about how triads are made, we need to talk about yet another pattern to remember:  the pattern of chord qualities by scale degree.  “Chord quality” is just the term for denoting whether a chord is Major, minor, Augmented, or diminished.  If the scale is truly a major scale, then the pattern will always be as follows (abbreviations of qualities in parenthesis):

  • 1=Major (Maj or M)
  • 2=minor (min or m)
  • 3=minor
  • 4=Major
  • 5=Major
  • 6=minor
  • 7=diminished (dim or d)
  • 1=Major

If you’re building triads from the minor key, your pattern will be different.  Although we will more thoroughly discuss relative minors for each major key in a later post, the relative minor of any key is found by starting on the 6th scale degree  There are two ways you can write out the pattern in natural minor.

You can write it in its relative major key by calling your starting degree “6″, and your pattern will be as follows:

6min, 7dim, 1Maj, 2min, 3min, 4Maj, 5Maj, 6dim

Or you can write it as the minor key by calling your starting chord “1″.  Then you have:

1min, 2dim, 3Maj, 4min, 5min, 6Maj, 7Maj, 1dim

Regardless of whether you write it as the relative major or as the minor key, the pattern remains the same for Natural Minor.

CHORDS BY KEY

Now that we should know how to build our scales and which chord qualities to use by scale degree, we can determine which chords are in each key.  Here’s a list:

  • C Major = C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim, C
  • G Major = G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em, F#dim, G
  • D Major = D, Em, F#m, G, A, Bm, C#dim, D
  • A Major = A, Bm, C#m, D, E, F#m, G#dim, A
  • E Major = E, F#m, G#m, A, B, C#m, D#dim, E
  • B Major = B, C#m, D#m, E, F#, G#m, A#dim, B
  • F# Major = F#, G#m, A#m, B, C#, D#m, E#dim, F#
  • C# Major = C#, D#m, E#m, F#, G#, A#m, B#dim, C#

Now for the flat keys (using the lowercase b as a flat symbol):

  • C Major = C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim, C
  • F Major = F, Gm, Am, Bb, C, Dm, Edim, F
  • Bb Major = Bb, Cm, Dm, Eb, F, Gm, Adim, B
  • Eb Major = Eb, Fm, Gm, Ab, Bb, Cm, Ddim, Eb
  • Ab Major = Ab, Bbm, Cm, Db, Eb, F, Gdim, Ab
  • Db Major = Db, Ebm, Fm, Gb, Ab, Bb, Cdim, Db
  • Gb Major = Gb, Abm, Bbm, Cb, Db, Ebm, Fdim, Gb
  • Cb Major = Cb, Dbm, Ebm, Fb, Gb, Abm, Bbdim, Cb

Here’s a handy tool to assist you with learning the chords by key. Check back for the next post, when we discuss Relative Minors in more detail.  As always, I welcome your questions and comments!

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