Native Chords in a Major Key
Dean Cutinelli here from the Colorado School of Music. Remember we are just a call away to start your private music lessons. We offer guitar lessons, piano lessons, drum lessons, Violin lessons, vocal lessons as well orchestral instruments. Now on to our discussion on chords in a major key.
All major keys have the same sequence of chords. There are 7 chords in a major key. First I will be discussing the chords that appear in a key that are root third and fifth. In music theory you may have seen romaine numeral used to indicate the quality or value of the chord.(Major, Minor or Diminished.) The order of chords in a major key appears as followed = I ii ii III IV vi vii*. This equals Major one, minor two, minor three, major four, major five, minor six and diminished seven chord. All of these chords are root third and fifth.
Now if we take each of the chords just discussed and build them out to the seventh we get a whole new batch of chords that are native to the key. Now our one chord becomes major seventh the two chord becomes minor seventh, three chord is minor seventh, four chord is major 7th, the five chord is now dominant seventh, six chord is minor seventh and the seventh chord now becomes minor seventh flat five. I recommend playing these in the order they appear. I would also play the first sequence of chords as well and compare the sound difference.(R-3rd-5th) The extended chords like major seventh and dominant 7th are very useful when writing music. You will find the extended chords are very colorful in sound.
I hope this helps a little bit on what chords are native to a key. If you’re looking to expand your chord knowledge come on in and try an introductory lesson from one of our great instructors or myself. We offer guitar lessons, piano lessons, drum lessons, violin lessons and vocal lessons as wells as some orchestral instruments.
