Major Scale Chords

You might have practiced playing scales note by note. But to get a real feel for all the harmonic possibilities music scales have to offer you have to play chords. Understanding how scales work will make you a better guitar player and a better musician over all, especially if you see how chords and scales fit together.

This might sound counterintuitive, but knowing chords within scales will make it much easier for you to play guitar by ear. Also once you understand what function each chord plays in a scale you will be able to transpose songs from key to key on the fly.

Let’s dig into a major scale and its chords to see how they work together. Major scale is the mother of all modern harmony so it is a given that we get to know it well.

We will be working in the key of C, but the same concepts apply to any other key.

This article might get a bit technical for a bit, but bare with me it is not rocket science.

In case you are not interested in details of music theory and just needs to know how to play certain chords, here is the chart of all main major scale chords for all 12 keys:

If this chart doesn’t make much sense please read on.

From notes to chords

Let’s start by looking at the notes in the C major scale:

There are 7 notes in the major scale. We can build a chord from each one of them ending up with 7 main chords. Just for reference, the process of making chords out of the scale is called harmonization.

There are different ways to harmonize the scale, but most commonly it is done using triads. Triads are simple three note chords.

To build our first triad we will start with the first note C. That will be the root note (1st) of the chord. Now we will skip the next note, but we will use the following note (3rd) which happens to be E. Again, skip the next note, and take the following one, which will be G (a 5th note in the scale). So we have C-E-G which is a C major chord.

We can repeat the process for every note in the scale. We will end up with a harmonized C major scale that looks like this:

As you can see some chords are major while others are minor. That’s because the notes in the major scale are not spaced out equally. In terms of music theory, intervals between the notes are not the same.

For major chords (C, F and G) the intervals are 1-3-5 while for minor chords (Dm, Em and Am) the intervals are 1-b3-5. There is also a B diminished chord that has a formula: 1-b3-b5, and it is neither major no minor.

These formulas indicate the types of intervals that make up the chord.

For major chords:

• 1 – always indicates the root
• 3 – major 3rd
• 5 – perfect 5th

For minor chords:

• 1 – still the root
• b3 – minor 3rd
• 5 – perfect 5th

For diminished chords:

• 1 – root
• b3 – minor 3rd
• b5 – diminished 5th

Note how in diminished chord 5th is lowered but it is not called minor. Confusing. I know. Welcome to the world of music theory!

Chord formulas don’t change. That means for every major chord in any scale in any key we can apply them to any major scale and get relevant chords but in a different key. Same goes for minor and any other chord. In fact there are dozens of chord formulas that you will want to learn. Major scales can also be harmonized using 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th and all other kinds of chords.

Chord positions and functions within a key

Here is where it gets really interesting. Now when we have our chords we can assign each one a number indicating the chords position and function within the key. it is typically done with Roman numerals (those weird things that you can sometimes see on clocks and watches).

Major chords are indicated by upper-case Roman numerals (I, IV, V), and minor chords are marked with lower-case Roman numerals (ii, iii, vi). There is also a vii° diminished chord.

Each of the chords has a name corresponding to its function within the key:

• I – tonic
• ii – supertonic
• iii – mediant
• IV – subdominant
• V – dominant
• vi – submediant
• vii° – leading tone

You don’t need to memorize these names, but you should strive to learn the numbers for each chord. Knowing these scale degrees is the key to transposing (moving) songs from key to key.

You see, although chords change from key to key, their position and function stay the same. Here is a practical example.

Let’s say we have a song in key of C that uses chords C, F and G. If we look at the numbers we can say it uses I, IV and V chord. It is a common chord progression often written as I-IV-V.

Now we want to move the whole thing to the key of G. Let harmonize G major scale. We will get:

Looking at the chord numbers we can tell that we need G, C and D chords to make the chord progression work in this new key. And it works! Give it a try if you don’t believe me.

How to practice major scale chords

Ideally you should learn all the major and minor chords in every major scale that is in all 12 keys. Start with learning most popular keys like G, D, A and C, and then proceed to others.

One way to practice is to pick a key and get to know it really well before you move onto the next key. You can choose to focus on one key for several days or even weeks.

First, start with playing through the whole scale one chord at a time. Just go up and down the scale as you would play it note by note, but instead of playing notes play corresponding chords.

Go up and then down the scale! Call out the chord names and scale degrees as you do that.

Really listen to the chords and how they sound, and how they relate to one another.

If you are really adventurous you can also try and play same chords in the same key but in a different position on the neck.

Another perhaps easier and more fun idea is to learn to play common chord progression in each key. Try these:

• I-IV-V
• I-iv-ii-V

You can also practice songs in one key.