Most of the guitarists want to play
chords as soon as possible & to play it they follow the chord charts or
their teacher tells them how to form chords. It is ok to know just the chord
notes & how to hold them but as they get experience, the search of so many
questions begin to arise like how to build the chords. So in this lesson we
will learn to build the chords or triads from the scale itself. Chords are
basiclly built from their related scales and they consists of the notes from
the related scales.
In any key there are seven diatonic
triads. They can be formed by building two intervals of a third on each note in
the diatonic scale. Only notes including in the diatonic scale are used to
build the thirds. The whereabouts of the semi tone steps will determine whether
the intervals are major or minor thirds, and will dictate the type of
triad.
Harmonizing the Cmaj Scale:- Building diatonic triads on each note of the diatonic major
scale produces the following series: I-maj, II-min, III-min, IV-maj, V-maj,
VI-min, VII-diminished. Let's see it more deeply and apply this information to
the C major Scale. As you know the notes of C major scales are "C D E F G
A B C" and if you want to make chords/triads from this then according to
the above given formula the firs chord in the key of C will be Cmaj scale. Now
the next note of the C major scale is D which will be a minor triad as per the
formula. Next note is E which will be a minor triad. If we continue doing the
same we will get Fmaj, Gmaj, Amin & B diminished triads.
Harmonizing the Amin Scale:- Building triad on each note of the diatonic natural minor
scale produces the following series: I-min, II-diminished, III-maj, IV-minor,
V-min, VI-maj, VII-major. Amin scale has same notes as C major scale but starts
from the note A. So if we harmonize the Amin scale we will get the following
Chords/triads:- The first note of the Amin Scale is A so the first chord will
be Amin next will be B diminished then Cmaj, Dmin, Emin, Fmaj, Gmaj.
So what to remember after reading
the lesson, of course the formula to harmonize major & minor scale.
Remember this formula and you can build triads on any major or minor scale also
you can make great solos on the backing tracks. I will also cover a lesson on
how to make solo & backing track.