PART I: MAKING CHORDS
Here is a very simple lesson in the beginnings of harmony. It assumes you know some major scales and how they are made up of whole tones and half tones
Chords
In the key of C, C is the tonic (ie "home") chord. As you probably know, there are 7 notes in a major scale. In C these are C, D, E, F, G, A and B. We number these 1 to 7, often with roman numerals. So C is I, D is II, E is III, F is IV, G is V, A is VI and B is VII. This system can be very useful when you are discussing harmony in general and do not need to be in a specific key.
In the very simplest harmony system, we add two other notes to each of these notes so there are three notes in all, sounding together (in harmony). This simple three note chord is called a triad. To build a triad you take any note of the scale and add the 3rd and 5th notes above it.
There are seven notes of the major scale (the ones we call I to VII in roman numerals) and so we can make seven triads. (Actually we can make more, but for now we will stick to the seven notes of the scale). When you take one of these seven notes and build a chord on it, that note is called the "root" of the chord. To make this a bit clearer we shall now take a few of these notes in the key of C and build some triad chords. It helps if you can play them on a keyboard so you can hear what the chords sound like when the 3 notes are played at the same time, or spread out (arpeggiated).
The I chord in the key of C
As this is built on the 1st note (aka the tonic), it can be useful to think of this as the home chord. It sounds like it is at rest and does not need to progess to another chord. Usually a tune in a given key will end up on the tonic chord.
Here is a very simple lesson in the beginnings of harmony. It assumes you know some major scales and how they are made up of whole tones and half tones
Chords
In the key of C, C is the tonic (ie "home") chord. As you probably know, there are 7 notes in a major scale. In C these are C, D, E, F, G, A and B. We number these 1 to 7, often with roman numerals. So C is I, D is II, E is III, F is IV, G is V, A is VI and B is VII. This system can be very useful when you are discussing harmony in general and do not need to be in a specific key.
In the very simplest harmony system, we add two other notes to each of these notes so there are three notes in all, sounding together (in harmony). This simple three note chord is called a triad. To build a triad you take any note of the scale and add the 3rd and 5th notes above it.
There are seven notes of the major scale (the ones we call I to VII in roman numerals) and so we can make seven triads. (Actually we can make more, but for now we will stick to the seven notes of the scale). When you take one of these seven notes and build a chord on it, that note is called the "root" of the chord. To make this a bit clearer we shall now take a few of these notes in the key of C and build some triad chords. It helps if you can play them on a keyboard so you can hear what the chords sound like when the 3 notes are played at the same time, or spread out (arpeggiated).
The I chord in the key of C
As this is built on the 1st note (aka the tonic), it can be useful to think of this as the home chord. It sounds like it is at rest and does not need to progess to another chord. Usually a tune in a given key will end up on the tonic chord.
Count 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Notes C D E F G
Chord C E G
Notes C D E F G
Chord C E G
To make the chord we go up the scale scale starting on a root note of C, and use the 3rd and 5th notes along with the 1st (ie the root -C in this case)
You can see from this that by missing out the alternate 2nd and 4th notes, we end up with the triad of 1st (root) 3rd and 5th.
The II chord in the key of C
The root note of this is D (the second note of the C scale). To make the chord we go up the scale of C, but this time starting on starting on D (In roman numerals note II of C). Once again we omit the 2nd and 4th notes to make the triad based on D:
Count 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Notes D E F G A
Chord D F A
Notes D E F G A
Chord D F A
Once again by missing out the alternate 2nd and 4th notes, we end up with the triad of 1st (root) 3rd and 5th. It’s useful to differentiate between the roman numerals and arabic numerals. The roman numerals (I - VII) always refer to the note as relative to the key you are in, i.e. relative to the tonic. These are the root notes of the triads in that key. The arabic numerals (1st, 2nd, 3rd) refer to the notes relative to each of those chord root notes (I - VII). make sure you understand this, it may be easier to grasp in musical notation:
In other words each chord built on a degree of the major scale (I - VII) has it’s own chord based on the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes counted upward from that root, NOT counted from the tonic of the key.
JAZZ THEORY FOR BEGINNERS PART 2 Available soon
by pete thomas
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