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Posted by: Becks Feb 18 2009, 04:26 AM

I know how to figure out the chords in a major key. You write out the scale place the sharps where appropriate then use the formula Major, Minor, Minor, Major, Major, Minor, Diminished. Just to use an example i will use C.

C = C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, B diminished

But what would the chords be if the Key was C#? Is there also a set formula?

Posted by: lcsdds Feb 18 2009, 04:31 AM

That formula applies to ALL keys. For C# Major everything just gets moved up a semitone.

Posted by: Ramiro Delforte Feb 18 2009, 04:35 AM

That's right

C# major would be

C# - D#m- E#m- F#- G#- A#m- B#dim.

But I don't understand the title of the topic "Chords in minor keys"

In a minor key would be the same starting on the VI degree

Am would be

Am- Bdim- C- Dm- Em- F- G- Am

But as you might know the minor keys uses sometimes the Harmonic minor or most of the time the Melodic minor that turns the IV and V degree into major chords so the cadences are more "strong".

Let me know if this helped you

Posted by: sigma7 Feb 18 2009, 04:47 AM

Hmm, this whole chord scale music theory is tough to grasp haha

Posted by: Becks Feb 18 2009, 05:02 AM

I realized after that the title did not make sense. lol
okay that makes sense. I am new to this whole theory thing. There is sooo much to learn and at times its rather confusing. But thanks for the help!

one more thing. Would the formula for a minor key be minor, diminished, major, minor, minor, major, major, minor?

Posted by: lcsdds Feb 18 2009, 05:06 AM

Yes it would. Good job!!

Posted by: Becks Feb 18 2009, 05:20 AM

Fantastic!!! thank you very much!!





And Ramiro you used the example with Am, shouldn't there be some sharps in there?

Posted by: Ramiro Delforte Feb 18 2009, 05:36 AM

Nop, Am is the relative minor of C major so it hasn't any sharps or flats

Here I leave you the link to the Wikipedia entry about the circle of fifths.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths

That would be really helpful to memorize and understand how the alterations takes place into any key.

Posted by: Becks Feb 18 2009, 05:46 AM

So in a minor key how do you know which notes have sharps??

Posted by: Ramiro Delforte Feb 18 2009, 05:56 AM

Well if you take a look to the circle of fifths you might notice that the C is in the center because it doesn't have any alterations.

If you go to the right of the circle you'll be adding alterations so

G major would have 1 sharp F# = Em is like G major starting from E
D major would have 2 sharps C# = Bm is like D major starting from B
A major would have 3 sharps G#= F#m is like A major starting from F#
E major would have 4 sharps D#= C#m is like C major starting from C#
B major would have 5 sharps A#= G#m is like B major starting from G#
F# major would have 6 sharps E#= D#m is like F# major starting from D#
C# major would have 7 sharps B#= A#m is like C# major starting from C#

The left part of the circle have the flatted keys

F major would have 1 flat Bb = Dm is like F major starting from D
Bb major would have 2 flats Eb = Gm is like Bb major starting from G
Eb major would have 3 flats Ab= Cm is like Eb major starting from C
Ab major would have 4 flats Db= Fm is like Ab major starting from F
Db major would have 5 flats Gb= Bbm is like Db major starting from Bb
Gb major would have 6 flats Cb= Ebm is like Gb major starting from Eb
Cb major would have 7 flats Fb= Abm is like Cb major starting from Ab

Let me know if this claryfies a little bit

All the major keys are related to minor keys and vicevesa. So you'll learn all the major keys and it's relation with the minor keys.
The need for other keys began with the begining of the tonality sistem. So the alterations are there to make the exact proportions of the major and minor scale, is an intervalic proportion.

Major: 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 (semitones talking)

Minor: 2 1 2 2 1 2 2

The alterations are there to make this proportions hapend, I'll give you an example

C major: C D E F G A B C

G major: G A B C D E F G (this scale is not G major because between the F- the seventh degree- and the G -the first degree- there isn't a semintone or half-step so I have to sharp the F in order to get the scale exactly like the C major)

G A B C D E F# G

Now it has the same proportions. The same happend with all the scales

Posted by: David Wallimann Feb 18 2009, 03:20 PM

Just wanted to add that the 7th degree (or chord) is really a half diminished chord.
If you are talking about 3 note chords, then it is called a diminished triad (Root, min3rd, dim5th) but with the 4 note chords it's only a half diminished:
Root, min3rd, dim5th, min7th

A diminished 4 note chord would have a diminished 7th instead of a minor 7th.

Posted by: Muris Varajic Feb 18 2009, 04:31 PM

I believe that diminished only is pretty fine name for diminished triad.
However there is a big difference between diminished and half diminished
when we talk about 7th chords.
I'm saying this because there is no half diminished triad
so unless you really forgot to add "7th" there's no chance for confuse,
and from what I see here Becks was talking about triads only.

Posted by: Emir Hot Feb 18 2009, 04:37 PM

Well explained Muris

Posted by: David Wallimann Feb 18 2009, 04:47 PM

Exactly. :-)

Posted by: Ramiro Delforte Feb 18 2009, 06:53 PM

I agree with Muris
When I explained the topic the "triad" was tacit, so the diminished refers to the diminished triad. And that could also be thoutgh because I didn't add any seventh to the other chords.

Posted by: Becks Feb 18 2009, 11:54 PM

Wow you guys have officially lost me... But thats okay one day i will know all this stuff!

Posted by: Pedja Simovic Feb 18 2009, 11:56 PM

Which part did you get lost on ?

Posted by: Becks Feb 19 2009, 12:17 AM

pretty much everything.... i stil am not 100% sure on how to figure out the chords in the minor keys. well i know how to get them but i dont know where to put sharps. And the triad thing they were talking about i dont even know what a triad is.

Posted by: DeepRoots Feb 19 2009, 12:52 AM

Triad = 3 note chord

Where are the sharps? First you need to know the formula for a minor key is T S T T S T T (where T is a whole tone and S is a semi-tone)
Apply that formula to your key of choice- lets use F# : F# G# A B C# D E

From there- you need to know which type of chord lies on which degree of the scale, for a minor key that is:

Iminor IIdiminished IIImajor IVminor V minor VI major VII major

when we apply our scale notes to that we then get:

F#minor, G# diminished, A major, B minor, C# minor, D major, E major. Sorted!

Learning the circle of fifths like Ramiro explained will allow you to memorize this sort of thing so that you can know the notes in a key on the fly- there is an initial bit of work involved though . Until then you can just work it out with the right formula (you'll want to remember the formula for which degree is which kind of chord in a scale though)

Hope that was of some help

Posted by: Emir Hot Feb 19 2009, 01:01 AM

Triad is the chord that has 3 notes, when you take 1st, 3rd and 5th note from the scale. If you take 1st, 3rd and 5th note from major scale you will get a major chord where the 1st note is the root. If you take the same formula from a Dorian scale you will get a minor chord, etc... Now if you add 7th on top of 1st, 3rd and 5th note then you get a seventh chord. In C major case it would be C maj 7 in C major scale. Moving on to the next mode (D Dorian) you will get D min 7. The whole C major scale haromized looks like this: Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7, Fmaj7, G7, Am7, Bm7b5 and Cmaj7 again. Does this sounds more clear?

Posted by: berko Feb 19 2009, 01:30 AM

There are a lot of good answers here but just in case!

Looking at your posts here it seems to me that you've memorized what chords come to which degree of a scale. For the major scales it would go like this:

Imajor, IIminor, IIIminor, IVmajor, Vmajor, VIminor, VIIdiminished

From this formula, of course, comes the solution for the minor scales as well and you've discovered this one also. You basically start from the "VIminor" degree and then go to VII diminished etc., but of course the numbers of the degree is reset. So we get this:

Iminor, IIdiminished, IIImajor, IVminor, Vminor, VImajor, VIImajor.

Now this stuff is about how to apply chords to scales. If you had actually opened a theory book, this stuff would've come after the concept of triads and how scales are built up, that is: where we put the sharps and the flats and why! I think you only memorized this concept about chords, which isn't wrong, except that if you first know what triads and chords are, then what scales are and how they are built up, you can then more easily relate the two! I would recommend you to check Andrew Cockburn's theory board. You can use the search feature of the forum, or the link on the main page (below the picture on which the mad guy is pointing at you )

Posted by: Ramiro Delforte Feb 20 2009, 04:47 AM

THe order of the sharps is: F C G D A E B so when you go to the right of the circle of fifths that I've transcribed before you have that

G major has 1 sharp and as the first one is F the G major scale would have F# leaving: G A B C D E F# G
D major has 2 sharps and as G major had F# you'll add one more sharp to this scale and that would be C# and the result would be: D E F# G A B C# D
If you keep adding sharps to the next keys (A, E, B, F# and C#) you'll find that the next key has the previous sharp and one more (using the order that I've written at the first part of the post)

When you talk about flats is the same thing but backwards, the order that the flats get into the keys is the inverse of the sharp order, and that would be: B E A D G C F

So as F major is the first key to the left of C major in the circle of fifths that key has 1 flat and that would be Bb leaving the scale: F G A Bb C D E F
The following scale in the circle would be Bb and that has the previous alteration (Bb) and the next one Eb, so Bb major would be: Bb C D Eb F G A Bb
And as in the example with the sharps the list of alterations moves along with the keys.

This circle of fifths is made to memorize all the keys but in a easier way, because if you do the math to the major scale like TTSTTTS in every key the result is the circle of fifths. The theory behind this nmemotechnique rule is really easy.
You go from C to the right adding up fifths and you add one sharp by one key and as you do that you keep adding the sharps of the previous keys.
As you go to the left of the circle you go down fifths and you add flats one per key and the next key add one plus the previous that had the previous key.

I hope this clarify the way to read the circle

Posted by: Pedja Simovic Feb 20 2009, 10:24 AM

Triad is 3 note chord that consists of Root (main tone) some sort of 3rd (major or minor) and some sort of 5th (perfect, augmented or diminished).


In major scale there is 3 types of triads used

Major (Root Maj 3rd Perfect 5th) on I IV V scale degrees of the scale
Minor (Root Min 3rd Perfect 5th ) on II III VI scale degrees of the scale
Diminished (Root Min 3rd Diminished 5th) on VII scale degree of the scale.

In key of C major you then get

C F G = major chords
D E A = minor chords
B = diminished chord !


Thats harmony of C major with triads and that applies to any major scale and key !!!

For natural minor you have to relate it with major scale and you will get your answers immediately

If you have A natural minor that scale is related to C major scale as it has exact same notes in it , hence the chords are all the same !

The formula to find your related major key is to go up a Minor 3rd (or 3 frets) = thats your relative major scale
If you have major scale and want to find related minor , go down a Minor 3rd (or 3 frets) = thats your relative minor scale

Hope this helps !