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In music, when you get this one single concept, it unlocks the door to many things!
The 6th tone of any major scale is your gateway to “minor!”
Just remember the 6th tone. That’s it.
For example, if you take a regular C major scale (C D E F G A B C) and start and end on the 6th tone without changing any of the notes, you’ll get an “A minor” scale (A B C D E F G A).
The same applies for chords…
Today, I want to share a concept that a lot of beginners still don’t get.
There’s not much difference in playing major and minor chords when you think the way I think.
In fact, as the title loudly declares: There’s a major chord in every minor chord and a minor chord in every major chord.
Sure, this isn’t apparent in smaller triads, but it’s clear in seventh chords and up, when carefully analyzed.
First, let me start this discussion by showing you how…
It’s been said “small hinges swing big doors” and it’s true. Today’s strategy is so simple and concise, yet it will be very valuable to you.
So with that said, here’s a simple alteration you can make to spice up minor chords and sound like you’ve been playing for years. When a pro hears you do this, you automatically get brownie points…
I promised yesterday to show you something else you could do with the 3-chord in “Amazing Grace.” As you learned on Thursday, substituting major for minor can sound much better at times. It doesn’t work all the time but it’s usually worth a try. If it sounds worse, you just revert back to using minor… it’s that simple!
The reason it works is because it’s sort of operating like a 5-chord temporarily…
Today, we’ll continue to use the circle of fifths to create even bigger chord progressions that are sure to spice up our songs! We’ve certainly come a long way since Wednesday’s lesson on primary chords. And after this post, you’ll be one step closer to picking out these common circular progressions in your favorite songs, guaranteed!
(If you haven’t read Wednesday’s and Thursday’s post, it’d be a good idea to start there as this lesson continues with what we’ve already learned…)
Today, we’re going to keep exploring the number system and circle of fifths and see what else we can do to spice up the primary chords we already know.
Yesterday, we talked about the primary chords of a scale. We established that the 1, 4 and 5 are the most important degrees of any scale and that you can pretty much play tons of songs with these chords. In fact, you can play most songs with just these chords.
But now, I want to take it a step further and show you how to get those other tones of the scale working for you.
Having trouble playing in minor keys? You’ll literally laugh when you figure out how simple it is to play minor scales and all the chords that correspond to them, once you know your major scales!
Minor chords are pretty simple, if you already know your major chords. You just take the 3rd degree of your major chord and lower it a half step. (Half steps are from key to key with no keys in between.) So if the C major chord is C+E+G, first figure out what the third degree [...]
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