Guitar Theory: Chord Progressions
THE MAJOR SCALE AND PROGRESSION THEORY
GET THE CHORD CHARTS (sorry they're too big for HTML so I put them in PDF) 420k but it's worth the download!!!!
If you looked through the previous web pages, you’ve seen how to chords are constructed. Now it’s time to put all these chords into action by exploring their relationship to each other. To vastly understate it, this is a complicated, or at least tedious, task.
There are so many chords, the combinations of them are virtually unending. So we’ll start with the old standby, the MAJOR SCALE and how it affects chord progressions.
Remember there are 7 notes in the major scale, made up of different intervals. Well, you can build chords on each of these notes. Some of them are minor chords, some of them are major chords, some of them are diminished chords.
The fist chart you look at will be triad major chords, which are basically chords made up of the 1 - 3 - 5 notes of the major scale.
So a C major triad would be C - E - G because C is the tonic, E is the major 3rd and the G is the perfect 5th of the C major scale. If it is a minor triad chord, simply flatten the 3rd. So a C minor triad would be C - Eb - G. Get it?
The second chart you will look at in Major Scale Progression section is the 7th chord progression chart. This essentially is the same thing as the triad chord chart but many people use 7th chords to add interest or depth to the chords in their progressions. 7th chords add more personality, per se, to the mix. These chords follow the same pattern as the triad chart but we add some 7ths and flatted 7ths to the chords. You’ll see where to do this.
Every progression chart in this Unit will follow the same format.
So let’s go over how to read these things so you can
learn all they have to offer you.
line 1: scale tones or intervals (in Roman Numerals) of the
scale that the chords are being built upon 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th,
5th, 6th, 7th intervals
l ine 2: the significance of this tone, the position it holds
in the key, we’ll talk about this later when we start
looking at different progressions within the key
line 1: flavor of the chord ... major, minor, diminished,
dominant, whatever
line 2: the intervals that make up the chord for that scale
ton
line 1: name of the chord in the progression or key, all of these
chords will work in this key (which is chord I)
line 2: the chord notes that make up that chord in the progression, equivalent
of the intervals above in red
line 3: chord example. This is simply 1 way to play the chords in the progression.