First off , chords that are part of the harmonized scale in any key are engineered to sound good and be very flexible while playing in that key . If you ’ re playing in the key of C , chords from the harmonized scale will likely be part of most songs you will be playing ( generally making chords easier to find ). And , if they ’ re not specifically called for in the printed music , certain patterns of chords from the harmonized scale can be used to great effect in “ dressing up ” or re-harmonizing commonly used chord progressions on tunes you already play . Finally , given the fact that the melody can only be one note of any chord , being aware of the other notes that make up the chord of the moment makes finding appropriate harmony notes to that melody note quite simple .
It must be noted and remembered that chords in the harmonized scale are built on notes that are part of that scale ( i . e . incorporating whatever notes are natural , sharp or flat in that particular key ). For example , you could take a scale graph similar to those above and assign it to any key and the notes to harmonize a scale would fall into place just like the example key of C IF you use the notes which are natural , sharp or flat in building the chords . For example , in a scale in the key of F , the fourth note is Bb instead of B natural ( but the progression of major and minor chords corresponding with numeric degrees of the scale remains the same )…
Remember earlier when I cautioned you not to be intimidated by musical terms which might not already be part of your musical vocabulary ? Well hold on to your pick , because you ’ re about to learn a few more … starting with Diatonic . Chords in a harmonized scale are called Diatonic . Simply put , diatonic chords are built from notes used in the major scale of that key ( including sharps and flats , if any ). You should think of diatonic chords in the harmonized scale as a group of chords all related to one another by the notes of a key .
But what about songs that use chords like G7 , D7 , A7 , E7 , etc . which are not part of the harmonized scale in that key ?
Seventh chords such as G7 , D7 , A7 , E7 , etc . are made up of four notes … the root , the major third , the fifth , plus a minor seventh above the root . The most common use of a seventh chord is at the fifth or Dominant degree of any scale in any key . Yup , yet another scary term not used in every day banjo conversation . Just like the do-re-me scale degrees have correlating Roman numeric values , schooled musicians ( who would never deign to using “ do-re-mi ”) long ago assigned more intimidating words to identify degrees of the scale such as tonic , sub-median , dominant , etc . …
To minimize confusion , think of “ do-re-mi …,” “ I , II , III …,” and “ tonic , supertonic , median …” as three different ways of expressing exactly the same thing . While it ’ s nice to know all the names above , for our purposes , remembering that the fifth degree of any scale is the dominant degree of that scale will be the most important take away from this part of our lesson . For example , in the key of C the most common chord to
ALL FRETS SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020 19