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Triads from the major scale

On 2/15 we talked about musical intervals, and tips and tricks for spelling your major scales faster.

We also did a little building of chords, looking at the differences between major and minor, etc. We culminated with looking at how we can build chords from the major scale.

Important things to remember:


  • Chords are built from thirds.
  • Stacking up thirds based on the major scale gives us a very specific pattern of major and minor triads.
  • In C, the triads are C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am and Bo. (o means diminished, but you won't need it anytime soon)
  • The pattern is this: I, IIm, IIIm, IV, V, VIm and VIIo
Knowing that the major scale builds those chords for us, no matter what key, we can memorize those chord qualities by number, and use them to communicate, transpose tunes, and call out stuff on the bandstand if needed.

Here's a link to last week's slides...

Our homework was:

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