Chord Theory part 1: The Major Scale

So at our music clinic on Saturday we spent a lot of time discussing chord theory. Basically Brendan explaned that we need to understand chords in order to understand why simplicity in our playing is actually better than complexity. We talked about how often guitarists and keys players will add notes to chords (playing a C2 instead of the C written on the page) and not really let anyone else know about it. When we do add something not written on the page we need to be able to explain that to our fellow musicians so that too many of us aren't doing the same thing. If both guitarists and keys players were all to add one note to a chord (say C2, Csus, Cmaj7 and Csus4) there are bound to be some sour notes going on there. The problem is most of us don't know what the exact name of the chord we're making is. So I'm going to do my best to transfer my chord theory knowledge to you. The best place to start is the major scale.

The major scale is the basis for all western harmony and theory actually. It's a 7 note scale and we all know it...think of "The Sound of Music". You know... doh-re-mi-fah-so-la-ti-doh? That's what it sounds like. Any note can be the start of a major scale...let's use C for an example. Basically, from the root note (C in this case) we make steps in a certain pattern to get back to C in 7 notes and make the scale. The pattern is made of whole steps or half steps. The pattern is like this W-W-H-W-W-W-H. On a guitar a whole step is the distance of 2 frets and a half step is one fret. On piano, a whole step is two keys, half steps are on adjacent keys. So from C we go one step up to D, then E, then a half step to F then G-A-B and the half step takes us back to C (the octave above). So the C major scale is C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. A G amjor scale is G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G. One more...how about the key of D? D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D. Do you see the pattern? Good!

The next thing to know is that each note in the scale gets a number or interval. So in C the D is the second or "2". D is the third or "3" etc. And so if you play the C and any other note you're playing an interval (the name we give a two note "chord"). So playing a C and G at the same time is called C5. A C4 would be C and F etc.

I think that's enough for now. The important thing to note is that the major scale is made of certain steps starting and ending on the root note and that the root note has a relationship to all the other notes in the scale and the interval name corresponds to the step or number given to that other note in the scale.

Up next...what the heck is a chord?