How do you figure out chords on the guitar?
It's not magic. Just knowledge. - Part 2 of 3
It has been calculated that there are as many as 22,000 chords on the guitar. How many do you need to know? It all depends on the genre of music you like to play on your guitar.
The “blues” does not require a long list of chords to play that genre of music. Maybe that’s why so many people like to play the blues. Playing the blues is really more about melodic improvisation.
However, pop, rock and country use significantly more chords than the blues because the song structures and chord progressions used in those genres are sometimes much more involved.
Then there’s jazz. When it comes to learning traditional, mainstream and fusion jazz, well - the skies the limit. Maybe you really only need to know how to play 80-100 chords to play just about anything you want to play.
What do you need to know?
Continuing from Part 1 of this lesson, let’s talk about learning, knowing, practicing and understanding the circle of 5th’s, and how to make sense of keys in music.
Here is the circle of 5th’s
This Circle of 5th’s diagram is quite literally all of the triad chords you need to know on your guitar - or at least most of them. The “black” circle represents the major chords and their keys. The gray circle represents the relative minor chords. The outside orange bar indicates the numerical placement in each key. Think of that orange bar as a sort of movable template that encircles the entire diagram to show each of the chord placements in all twelve keys. (By the way, the “vii” on that orange bar, should read “vii°”, as it is a minor chord with a “flatted 5th” - otherwise known as a diminished triad.)
Clear as mud? Perhaps, it may look a little daunting and complicated.
Let’s try something easier. Here is another way to look at that same circle above, only in a linear form:
The far left column is the name of the “Key”. Counting from the top to the bottom of the column, you will see that there are a total of twelve keys: C, G, D, A, E, B, F#, Db, Ab, Eb, Bb and F.
The second column is the first chord in that key, which just so happens to also be the name of the key. However, the name of that column is marked “Major”. This means that all of the chords in that column are Major chords.
If you follow across to the remaining columns, you will see that each column is marked either major, minor or diminished. There are three major chords, three minor chords and one diminished chord in each of the twelve keys in music.
These chords are simply called “triads” (three note chords).
Why are they colored?
Every note has its own color. If you study the diagram, you will see that each note exists in seven different places, (Three major, three minor and one diminished chords). Each of these seven chords has its own designated placing in one of seven keys as either a major chord, the minor chord or the diminished chord.
For example - If you look at the bright yellow “C” chord, it shows up as a major chord in the key of C as the “I” or the key chord. The exact same chord shows up again as the “IV” in the key of G, and again as the “V” in the key of F.
Then you can find that “C” as the “II” minor chord in the of Bb. Then it shows up again as the “iii” minor chord in the key of Ab, and again as the “vi” minor chord in the key of Eb. It becomes a “vii°” in the key of Db.
This pattern exists for all twelve chords in all twelve keys.
Remember that enharmonic chords will have different names in different keys, but “tonally”, they sound exactly the same.
For example - The Bb minor chord as the “ii” in the key of Ab, is the exact same tonal chord as the A# minor chord as the “iii” in the key of F#.
Every key MUST have either a major, a minor or a diminished version of all seven chords. If you look at the key of F#, there is what looks like, some sort of anomaly chord in the “vii°” position. Yes, “E#°” is an actual chord. This is simply one form of the “E” chord that must exist in the diminished slot as an E#, because the F is already being used as an F#. You cannot use F and then F# in the same key and not include some version of the E chord.
Part 3 will be the last part of this lesson, and will include #4: “An understanding of voicings and inversions”. This concludes Part 2 of 3. Part 3 of 3 will be posted soon.