Hi and a big welcome to everyone out there in guitar cyberspace. As this is my first contribution to the site I thought we would begin by taking a look at how to harmonize the Major Scale, This will then help us to determine various chord types and their association within Major keys. Over the coming months I will endeavour to address many guitar related subjects. If you have any suggestions or items that you would like to see included here then please feel free to send me an E-mail. Have fun and I’ll see you next time!
Harmonizing the Major Scale
The harmonization of the Major scale basically helps us to construct diatonic (belonging to the key) chords built upon each degree of any given Major Scale. This in turn helps us to determine the chords that belong to each key which can be an especially useful compositional tool when constructing chord progressions and writing songs.
Let us first begin by analysing the notes contained within the C Major Scale. This is a good starting point as it contains no sharps or flats, otherwise known as accidentals.
| C | D | E | F | G | A | B |
| R | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
Chords are constructed of ascending diatonic thirds, therefore if we take our first note C (the root note of the scale) the third note E a third above, and the fifth note G a third above that we create our first chord. This is the chord of C Major and it is built upon the first degree of the C major scale.
| C | D | E | F | G | A | B |
| R | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
If we continue this process by building chords built upon each of the remaining scale degrees we create the following diatonic triads:
Diatonic Triad’s in the Key of C Major
| C Major
(R,3,5) |
D minor
(R,b3,5) |
E minor
(R,b3,5) |
F Major
(R,3,5) |
G Major
(R,3,5) |
A minor
(R,b3,5) |
B Dim
(R,b3,b5) |
| R | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
If we were to write this on a stave it would look something like this:
|
I |
II |
III |
IV |
V |
VI |
VII |
One thing worth remembering here is that the quality of the chords built upon each scale degree will always remain the same regardless of what key we are working in. This is true of all other harmonized Major scales e.g. Chord I will always be Major. Chord II minor etc
|
I |
II |
III |
IV |
V |
VI |
VII |
|
Major |
minor |
minor |
Major |
Major |
minor |
Diminished |
We can also follow this process through to its logical conclusion in order to create 7th, 9th, 11th and 13th chords that are basically extensions built upon the diatonic triads.
|
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
A |
|
R |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
Included in the tab are the stock chord voicings for the harmonized triads and seventh chords built upon the A string:
September 4th, 2007 at 11:08 am
[…] that discuss the harmonization of scales a little further, check out Phil Preece’s lesson “Harmonizing the Major Scale”. Another related lesson worth checking out is Tyler Oakleaf’s lesson “Chord Soloing and […]