Keys and Chords

[advaya]

To the original poster.

This page has been mentioned many times in the past, but in the event you've never seen it: http://www.chordmaps.com/

The section on chordmaps is very useful, but print out the whole thing (lots of good info contained within).

[SARcazm]

Once you have the chords in a key down, start working with inversions (especially on keyboards). Close harmony in general sounds more satisfying than parallel chord movements (tho, of course there is a place and time for them as well).

i.e. using ii V I as an example in G, you could play it as ACE DF#A GBD (parallel movement), or EAC F#AD GBD (close harmony).

Try it out and experiment.

[loopdon]

this is really helpful to a theory noob like me. and it is the first of all tutorials i have read on the subject that really makes me want to get into all of this. a huge thanks for this link!

even if this part of the forum is a little cryptic to me at times i want to thank everybody here for their contributions: THANKS!

[Cyniq]

.
For me, a lot of the explanations here are still too complicated for an introduction (although thorough and extremely generous). This is a great forum. KVR has expanded beautifully since I was around last.

Ok, my contribution (if I may).....

Theres only a few things you need to know.....

1)The major scale

This is the familiar... do, re, me, fa, so, la, ti, do, that you often learned at school. All our music is based on it. It's just a pattern of notes that sound good.

2) The simple formulas for major and minor chords.

Code: Select all

Major  1  3  5

Minor  1 3b  5 

(3b means a flatted 3rd, one semitone less).

This means that to find the notes for an A major chord, you apply the formula for an A major scale (always the major scale). Which has the notes.....

Code: Select all

A  B  C#  D  E  F#  G#

Using the formula count along the scale. For an A major chord ....

Code: Select all

A  B  C#  D  E  F#  G#    =   A C# E
1     3      5

and for A minor.....

Code: Select all

A  B  C#  D  E  F#  G#    =   A C E 
1     3b     5

(notice the C# is flattened by a semitone down to C)

Easy. Even the most horrific looking chords like D7sus4 are just a simple formula and you just count along the same major scale and add a few notes. Stupid simple stuff. On guitar you often only play 4 notes for some of the very complex looking things.


3) If you're playing in a key it means, strictly and for our purposes, that you can only use notes from that key.

For the Key of A major, we have the notes of the A major scale....

Code: Select all

A  B  C#  D  E  F#  G#

Ok, that means you can't play a D# (Eb) note for example, in the key of A.

So, what chords can we use in the key of A?

Well, only chords that have notes in our key.

Ok, I guess that means we can only have....

some sort of A chord,
some sort of B chord,
some sort of C# chord,
some sort of D chord,
some sort of E chord,
some sort of F# chord,
some sort of G# chord.

Ok, what sort of A chord? As we did above, we check our formulas against an A major scale and find....

For an A major chord....

Code: Select all

A  B  C#  D  E  F#  G#    =   A C# E
1     3      5 

This is ok, since we can see that these notes are in the key of A. So there we are, we can use an A major chord.

Hmmm... How about the A minor chord. Lets check it out...

Applying our A minor formula...

Code: Select all

A  B  C#  D  E  F#  G#    =   A C E 
1     3b     5

Shit no, that ain't gonna work, we need a C for A minor and the key of A only has a C#. Bugger off, no A minor.

This is all you have to do for each of your notes.

To find which B chord we can use we need to apply our formulas to the B major scale....

B major.... 1 3 5

Code: Select all

B  C#  D#  E  F#  G#  A#   =   B  D#  F#
1      3      5

Bugger off, there ain't no D# in the key of A. Can't use B major.

Lets try B minor.... 1 3b 5

Code: Select all

B  C#  D#  E  F#  G#  A#   =   B  D  F#
1      3b      5

Hey, that's better, those notes are in the key of A.

So we can use A major and B minor.

And so on....... with all the other notes.

You need to know the major scales for the rest of the notes so you can extract the chords as we did above. You can find a list of the scales on the net. Jesus, don't remember them.

Also, to start with, just make the last chord a G major chord. It should be a G# diminished but don't worry. For popular music, plenty of people just flatten the last chord by a semitone and make it major. It was good enough for the Beatles and it will be good enough for you to get started. Don't even bother with diminished and seventh chords and the like until later.

Ok, doing all this will give you.....

Code: Select all

A  major    A   C#   E
B  minor    B   D   F#
C# minor    C#  E   G#
D  major    D   F#  G
E  major    E   G#  B
F# minor    F#  A   C#
G  major    G   B   D

Now, dig this groovy fact. Once you have your list of chords you will see that each note of your key is contained in 3 of the chords.

Eg: The note A is contained in....

Code: Select all

A major  ..... A  C#   E  (obviously)
D major  ..... D  F#  A  
F# minor ..... F# A   C#

Another example: Say, the note C# can be harmonised by...

Code: Select all

C# minor ..... C#  E   G#  (obviously)
F# minor ..... F#  A   C#  
A  major ..... A  C#   E

You can see that in each chord the note acts as either the 1 or the 3 or the 5.

This means that you can harmonise a note with any of these three chords that contain that note and it will sound fine. One of them will instantly sound right to you though. In addition to your note melody, there will be a certain chord progression 'melody' that will seem to have a mind of its own.

And this is the simple beauty of a song of course. A melody going in a certain direction supported by a chord progression going in a different direction.

Therefore you can have melody note A supported by D major (D, F#, A) and then a C# melody note supported by changing to F# minor (F#, A, C#). Beautiful.

By the way, for songwriting, I recommend you pick a key and stick with it. I play guitar and bass and I use A. E is good for guitar as well. You will quickly become familiar with the same chords performing their same role and still sounding fresh for each new melody. It is a trivial thing to transpose to a different key later if you have to.

Stick to the notes and chords in that key. You only need to know 7 notes and 7 chords. Don't concern yourself with the others until you've written a few songs at least. It may be enough for ever.


And here's the thing.

That's all you need to know to get you started. With that info go and write ten songs.

And when you have, you will have naturally accumulated a lot more experience and you will be able to go on to more advanced stuff (and believe me there is plenty of that).

But, tons of people have based entire careers on just that stuff I've outlined above. Plenty of guitarists and bass players (even those in bands) don't know this stuff. Don't go anywhere near the more advanced shit until you've written some songs. If you are interested I can post numerous songs I've written that are based on just the basic major and minor chords exactly as shown above.

Jesus, this stuff is exhausting......
.

[Caleb]

If you want your formatting preserved - just wrap it in a code tag.

Eg.

Code: Select all

A B C# D E
1   3    5

Give your post an edit if you like and it will be fine.

Regards
Caleb

[the_nihilist]

And this is the thing.

That's all you need to know to get you started. With that info go and write ten songs.

And when you have, you will have naturally accumulated a lot more experience and you will be able to go on to more advanced stuff (and believe me there is).

But, plenty of people have based entire careers on just that stuff I've outlined above. Don't go anywhere near the more advanced shit until you've written ten songs. If you are interested I can post numerous songs I've written that are based on just the basic major and minor chords as extracted above.

Best damn advice one can possibly get about writing music. One only learns things by actually trying them.

[Cyniq]

Thanks Caleb, I have edited.

[Toxikator]

Best damn advice one can possibly get about writing music. One only learns things by actually trying them.

Hear hear!

BTW, that was a very good introduction to the concept.

[bullshark]

Top notch stuff Cyniq Clear, easy, concise and straight to the point.

[cheul]

Yep that's exactly what I did after reading www.chordmaps.com... well I didn't make 10 songs, rather a skeleton of a song, which nonetheless was really entertaining an exercise. Just try !

[MadPsyance]

Cyniq...I'm quite new to music theory so I hope you can let me ask you a few questions about your post.
In this part:

Code: Select all

A  major    A   C   E
B  minor    B   D   F#
C# minor    C#  E   G#
D  major    D   F#  G
E  major    E   G#  B
F# minor    F#  A   C#
G  major    G   B   D

Isn't the A major A C# E?
Isn't d major d f# a?

Sorry if I sound dumb but I'm just really confused...

[bambooman]

@DubGusset
btw: (Rob Wright,UK) did a handy tool for chords.

you can see+hear chords on the fly
it might come in handy for you.

http://xenonic.redtoe.co.uk/pch.htm

[wrench45us]

consider those typos
as noted the diatonic chords set has to be constructed from the notes within the scale

once you're used to that in moving up and down then the use of inversions is really useful for smoothing movement

I've found the following to be somewhat useful
I == iii == vi
ii == IV
V == VII

this is basically saying these are 'roughly' equivalent because of shared notes

I never knew the theoretical reason, but just as it's somewhat allowed to use the flattened 7th as a major chord, the flattened 6th as major and flattened 3rd as major are also useful to add some color. I assume again it's the number of shared notes -- so in key of C that would be additional bVII Bb major, bVI Ab and bIII Eb.

The use of the secondary dominant is sometimes called backcycling and this is where it's good to have the cycle of 5ths chart in front of you. If you're destination is G you can 'transition' to G by going up a few V of Vs to say E to A to D to the destination G.
(In gospel music -- one of its defining characteristics is IV of IVs in much the same way)
and last but far from least is tritone substitution where you can wander across the cycle of 5ths and the transition from say D to G can include a passing chord of Db
again based on the number of common notes between the destination of G and Db (esp when one is using the 7th forms)

and hope that isn't too confusing, these are things I've picked up in the last 6 months or so myself

[JumpingJackFlash]

For those who like it in music notation:



These are the triads in A major. Each degree of the scale has a triad attached to it. Triads are 3-note chords with 3rds between each note.
All notes fit in with the key of A major, which has 3 sharps; F, C, and G.

As you can see, in major keys; chords I, IV and V are major chords. Chords II, III and VI are minor chords, and chord VII is diminished.

To remain in key, you can use any of these chords in A major. Any chords not on the chart do not belong to A major, and so are foreign to that key.

(For more information on triads, consult my Introduction to Music Theory

[Cyniq]

Hi MadPsyance,

You're right. I fixed it. Bloody hell, always a few typos.

Thanks