A Very Useful Music Theory For Guitar Player

For most self thought guitar player, the term ‘Music Theory’ is not something that they are interested to know much about probably because it’s a term that sounded so ‘Big’ and complicated. If this relates to you, let me change your perception by showing you a very useful music theory that can be used to figure out the chord sequence of a song fast and easy.

Scale Tone Chords Music Theory

‘Scale Tone Chords’ are chords that are made entirely from notes of one particular scale. These chords will fits naturally together to form a chord progression that will support the melody written from that scale. To further understand this concept, let’s examine how chords are constructed.

Basic chords are constructed by combining at least three notes from a scale. The formula to create a major chord is by combining notes that are a third apart from each other. This can be considered as; I – III – V.

Here’s a C major scale:

C(I) – D(II) – E(III) – F(IV) – G(V) – A(VI) – B(VII) – C(I)

By using this formula, we can create a C major chord by combining the note C, E and G from the scale (the name of a chord is defined by the root note or the starting note). To test this theory, try forming a C chord on your guitar, and identify the notes that are available, you will always end up with just C, E and G.

The formula can be apply to every notes of the C major scale above, and by doing so will create a ‘Scale Tone Chord’.

Here’s how it works:

_C__D__E__F__G__A__B__= C MAJOR SCALE

Combining notes a third apart from the above scale resulted in:

C – E – G = C Major

D – F – A = D minor

E – G – B = E minor

F – A – C = F Major

G – B – D = G Major

A – C – E = A minor

B – D – F = B Diminished

As you can see, applying this formula to every note of the C major scale resulted in the creation of a set of chords that are common or most likely to be found in songs that start with C major. This formula can be applied to any key and we will always end up with the following order of chord types:

Chord types created from scale tone:

Major – Minor – Minor – Major – Major – Minor – Diminished

In a key of ‘G major’, these would be:

(G – Am – Bm – C – D – Em – F#dim)

So what is the benefit of knowing this? Well, whenever you need to figure out the chord sequence of a song, all you have to do is find out the starting chord of the song and figure out the rest of the chords by trying out the other ‘Scale tone chords’ from that key.

Figuring out the chord sequence of a song will take some time to get use to, but with this method you now have a much narrower option of chord to choose from and you’ll know exactly what you’re doing.