A DIMINISHED INTERVAL WILL ALWAYS INVERT TO AN AUGMENTED INTERVAL AND VICE VERSA
1. RELATIVE - First, we need to understand it in the key we are
considering it in. In this case, we can see that this D minor chord is “in the key of C” meaning simply that we built it from the C major scale and that is functioning as the second chord in the key (ii-).
2. PARALLEL - We also need to compare it to it’s same root note major chord or scale. It’s crucial to understand the exact differences between this D minor chord and a D major chord in order to see why it’s not major.
If a D major chord is the notes D, F# and A...
And a D minor chord is the notes D, F and A...
Then any minor chord can easily be thought of as a major chord with it’s 3rd lowered a half-step.
Now we’re going to look at what happens when we build the rest of the triads from the remaining notes of the C major scale but before we do, I want to remind you that what you’re going to see will work exactly the same way with all of the other major scales using their respective notes. The note names and therefore the chord names will vary but the overall concept will remain consistant.
I ii- iii- IV V vi- viiº I
By stacking a 3rd and a 5th on top of each of the notes of the scale, we get seven individual chords all of which must be “in the key of C” because they were built strictly from the notes of the C major scale itself.
You’ll notice when you play through these that the voicings sound thin because we’re playing only a single root, a single 3rd and a single 5th in order to clearly demonstrate the three notes of each triad.
The term “diatonic” has a stricter definition but it’s usually used in
reference to anything that is built using only notes within a given scale. In this sense, these seven chords are all “diatonic” to the key of C. In other words, we haven’t used any notes outside of the C major scale to create them.
Notice that the chords built by starting from the 1st, 4th, and 5th scale tones created MAJOR chords (specifically C, F and G major) and are referred to in capital roman numerals as the “I, IV and V” chords.
The chords built from the 2nd, 3rd and 6th notes created MINOR chords (D, E and A minor) and are referred to in lower-case roman numerals as the “ii-, iii- and vi-“ chords.
But what about the Bº(“diminished”) chord built from the 7th note of the scale ?
To understand this B diminished chord which contains the notes B, D, and F,
on what we learned earlier, these must simply be the 1st, 3rd and 5th note of the B major scale ( B, D# and F# ).
As you can see, like a minor chord, this B diminished chord contains a
flatted 3rd. But unlike a minor chord it ALSO contains a flatted 5th. So this chord is literally condensed or diminished. It is notated with the roman numeral “vii˚”(notice that little circle indicating “diminished”).
Now let’s move back to the three major chords in this key. There are always three major chords built from any major scale
• one built from the first note (called the “tonic” or “I”),
• one built from the fourth note (called the “sub-dominant” or “IV”)
• and one built from the fifth note (called the “dominant” or “V”)
Notice how in all three cases, each of their notes match up exactly with the R, 3rd and 5th of their own respective major scales. For example, G major created as the fifth chord (V) in the key of C is made up of the same notes
The C Major Scale:
C D E
F
GA
BC
The F Major Scale:
F
GA
BbC
D E FThis brings up another vital point. Any chord, like C major for example, usually exists in multiple keys. A C major chord as it turns out, will be:
The “I” chord in the key of C (the “tonic” chord)
The “IV” chord in the key of G (the “sub-dominant” chord) The “V” chord in the key of F (the “dominant” chord)
And in each circumstance, it’s just the same notes C, E and G combined.
Looking at the minor chords that exist in the key of C (built from the 2nd, 3rd and 6th notes of the scale), we notice that they all have a flatted 3rd when compared to their “same root note” major chords. For example:
D minor ( D,F,A ) is the “ii-“ chord in the key of C (D major is made up of the notes D, F# and A) E minor ( E,G,B ) is the “iii-“ chord in the key of C (E major is made up of the notes E, G# and B) A minor ( A,C,E ) is the “vi-“ chord in the key of C (A major is made up of the notes A, C# and E)
It’s also important to look a little deeper at the exact intervals that make up each of these common triads.
In a MAJOR chord:
The distance from the root to the 3rd is a “major 3rd interval”
(4 half-steps)
The distance from the 3rd to the 5th is a “minor 3rd interval”
(3 half-steps)
The distance from the root to the 5th is a “perfect 5th interval”
(7 half-steps)
In a MINOR chord:
The distance from the root to the 3rd is a “minor 3rd interval”
(3 half-steps)
The distance from the 3rd to the 5th is a “major 3rd interval”
(4 half-steps)
The distance from the root to the 5th is a “perfect 5th interval”
(7 half-steps)
In a DIMINISHED chord:
The distance from the Root to the 3rd is a “minor 3rd interval”
(3 half-steps)
The distance from the 3rd to the 5th is a “minor 3rd interval”
(3 half-steps)
The distance from the root to the 5th is a “diminished 5th interval”
(6 half-steps)
Next, I want to mention a triad that isn’t created from a major scale but is
implies, you can think of it as an expanded major chord. More specifically, a major triad with the fifth raised up a half-step.
In an AUGMENTED chord:
The distance from the Root to the 3rd is a “major 3rd interval”
(4 half-steps)
The distance from the 3rd to the 5th is a “major 3rd interval”
(4 half-steps)
The distance from the root to the 5th is a “augmented 5th interval”
(8 half-steps)
So to recap, we built seven individual chords from the C major scale.
These chords can be represented specifically as:
C Dm Em F G Am Bº
Or more generically in roman numeral notation as:
I ii- iii- IV V vi- viiº
Once we know that the I, IV and V chords in any key are the major chords, the ii-, iii- and vi- chords are minor and the vii˚ chord is diminished, we can easily apply that reality to any major scale to instantly see the chords in any key.
I ii- iii- IV V vi- Viiº
Once that is clear, we can talk about simple “chord progressions”. For example, If I said the verse to “She Loves You” by the Beatles is a:
I , vi- , iii- , V chord progression in the key of G That means it goes from G to Em to Bm to D.
We could just as easily apply that same progression to any other key and in effect, “transpose” the chords of the song (the verse at least) to another key. For example:
In the key of C, the same chord progression would be:
C to Am to Em to G
Or in the key of D, the same chord progression would be:
D to Bm to F#m to A.
That should get you started with the concept but we’ll also talk about chord progressions in much more detail in a later chapter.
Suspended Triads
There are two other common triads that are important to understand and those are the “suspended 4th” (sus4) and “suspended 2nd” (sus2) chords.
The first thing to understand about a suspended chord is:
There can be no 3rd in it.
So, in the case of a sus4 chord the 3rd is completely replaced with the 4th note of the scale. It becomes a combination of the 1st, 4th and 5th notes of the scale. This creates an unresolved sound that tends to feel like it needs to resolve back to the major chord (1st, 3rd and 5th).
Some examples of the notes of a few common “sus4” chords are:
Csus4 = C, F, G Gsus4 = G, C, D Dsus4 = D, G, A Asus4 = A, D, E
Remember in each case, these are nothing more than the 1st, 4th and 5th notes of each chords major scale.
The sus2 chord is conceptually the same except that instead of replacing the 3rd with a 4th, it is replaced with the 2nd note of the scale. Sus2 chords are characterized by a more spacey “open” sound and unlike sus4 chords, they do not particularly feel like they want to resolve back to major chords.
Csus2 = C, D, G Gsus2 = G, A, D Dsus2 = D, E, A Asus2 = A, B, E
Now let’s look at some major triad shapes around the fretboard. For the purposes of the next few examples, I’m using a G major chord (G, B, D).
Notice that the roots (R) are all located on the fretboard at “G”s. (If we were to locate these same shapes at other places on the fretboard, they would still be major chords but built from whatever note the root happened to be).
Be sure to memorize where the 3rds and 5ths are in all of these voicings as well.
Major triad shapes on strings 1, 2 and 3:
Major triad shapes on strings 2, 3 and 4:
Major triad shapes on strings 3, 4 and 5:
All of the Root , 3rd and 5th patterns around the entire fretboard (using G major as the example):
Think of all of the different ways on adjacent and non-adjacent strings that you could combine one or more Roots, 3rds and 5ths together.
They are all G major chords! So there are lots of major triad shapes to discover but here’s the really cool part:
Based on the information in this chapter, it should be clear that if you:
1. Move the 3rd of any major chord down one fret (a half-step), the chord