theory posse - so, a little recap... we've talked about what a scale actually is, looked at the intervals that form a major scale and figured out how to get a major scale off of the drawing board and onto the neck... in all seven positions. And to play in a different key, you have to move all 7 positions....
So once the '7' are nicely under your fingers [which will take a good few weeks and maybe months of hard work - which is well worth it] then you can essentially play a major scale anywhere of the neck in any key......
As 100% of your time is not spent on the guitar... we can move on with the mind... we can now look at chords...how they relate to a key, how are they built and what are their names.......
By definition, a chord equates to 'more than one pitch sounding simultaniously'.... so any two or more notes sounding together constitutes a 'chord'.....
First we will look at 'triads' which are chords made up of thee notes.
A triad is composed of a 'root', a '3rd', and a '5th'.
The root is the note from which the other notes are calculated....
the 3rd and the 5th provide the tonal characteristics of the chord.. and ulimately provide the 'name'..
A 3rd can be either a minor or major interval from the root [exactly the same relationship between the 3rd and tonic in a scale...]
a minor 3rd is 1 1/2 tones [3 frets] higher the the root
a major 3rd is 2 tones [4 frets] higher
Obiously you can't play two notes at a time on a single string so this is purely a means of working out what the note is....
A 5th can be either 'perfect' or 'imperfect'. If it is perfect then it is 3 1/2 tones [7 frets] higher that the root.
if it is imperfect it can be either 'diminished' or 'augmented'.. think about what these words actually mean...
to diminish something is to reduce it.. so a diminished 5th is a semi tone flat from the perfect 5th which is therefore 3 tones above the root [6 frets]..
and likewise, to augment something is to add to it so an augmented 5th is a semi tone higher than a perfect 5th which is 4 tones [8 frets].
Each note of a major scale is, in addition to being a note in its own right, also the root of a chord that is 'diatonic' to that scale....
to clarify a litte, 'diatonic' means that the notes available are only those from the scale... notes that are outside of the scale are 'enharmonic' [pretty much meaning - outside of the scale..lol] and called 'accidentals'....
for example... G major scale = G, A, B, C, D, E, F#... so if a chord was sounding that contained only notes within the key of G major the chord is 'diatonic'....
if a chord sounded with one or more notes outside of G major such as a Bb or a D# then the chord contains an accidental and is deemed 'undiatonic'...
If a major key contains 7 notes then there can only be 7 chords...... as each note represents a 'root' of a chord....
chords are numbered in 'roman' numerals... so if you see..
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII - then these correspond to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc chord of a given key...
The name of a chord is determined by the note value of the root and the interval of the 3rd and the 5th...
a 3rd can be either minor or major and is therefore crucial to the name of the chord..
if the 5th is 'perfect' then it is considered to be pretty normal and is therefore not mentioned in the name.. so you only describe 5ths if the are imperfect...
