Music works in amazing ways that grow even more astonishing when you break them down.

With a solid understanding of the chromatic scale and the major scales we can take it another step further and actually look at how all this applies to real music.

In western music there are essentially three major parts that contribute to the overall sound of a piece, Melody, Harmony, and drums or percussion.

Arguably, the most important (or at least most memorable) of these is melody.

Vocab: Melody - a succesion of notes in a piece of music that creates a recognizable or repeatable voice. The "lead" or "head" of a piece of music.

Think of this as the top of a pyramid- it is the simplest and most drawing part of a piece of music. The melody, (also called tune) of a song is the part you can hum to yourself that is easy to remember and catchy. In a pop song, the melody is usually the vocal line- combining notes with lyrics. In an instrumental song, the melody can be played by many instruments like guitar, saxophones and other melodic instruments that "take the lead." Whenever there is an obvious succession of notes creating a musical sentence it is most likely a melody of some kind.

The classic vocal lines to "Happy Birthday," "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and "Mary Had a Little Lamb," are all examples of melody.

Usually based on diatonic notes, the melody will most likely be the series of the highest notes of the piece and will always move horizontally across a piece of music, (essentially it will change over time.)

Vocab: Diatonic - any note that fits into an overarching key or scale in a piece of music. (In the key of A Major, A, B, C#, D, E, F#, and G# are all diatonic, whereas Eb is not. In the key of Bb, Bb, C, D, Eb, F, G, and A are diatonic.)

The second part or tier of music is called Harmony.

Vocab: Harmony - the vertical "stacking" of notes played simultaneously and their relationship to each other.

Harmony is like the base of a pyramid, the base and foundation of a piece of music that helps support the melody on top. Specific notes are chosen and played at the same time, all at once and can last as long as necessary.

Note- notes creating the harmony not all begin or "hit" at the same time. One note may be hit first, and the second may come in later. If the first note is sustained, or still sounding When the second comes in you have harmony. (If the first note dies or fades out before the second come in you simply have two seperate notes.)

The harmony of a piece of music can be played by a single instrument- like the left hand on a piano or multiple instruments like guitars, basses, strings, horn sections etc. Most instruments that create the harmony are part of the "rhythm section."

You can hear the harmony (or lack their of) of a song at any moment in time in that exact instant- whereas the melody plays out over time.

Take a look at "Mary Had a Little Lamb" below.

The harmony can go under frequent changes over the course of a piece of music. When the harmony changes you have what is called a chord change.

Vocab: Chord - any combination of more than one note played simultaneously.

A chord is created when you take any two notes in the harmony and play them at the same time.

A chord made of two notes is called a Diad.

A chord made of three notes is called a Triad.

A chord made of four notes is called a Tetrad, but more commonly refered to as a four-part chord.

Outside of jazz and fusion harmony you will usually not deal with chords any more extended than four notes.

Note- this does not include the same note repeated twice or at an octave. For example, a four-part chord refers to four seperate notes- ie E, G#, B and D, not E, E, E and G- that would be called a diad because there are only two seperate notes, E and G.

Chords can be composed of any combination of notes, in any order and played on one single instrument or multiple instruments or voices as long as they sound at the same time.

Chords and Harmony can drastically alter the mood and sound of a piece and cast completely different sounds against a melody.

A harmony of major chords will sound happy and fuzzy while a harmony of minor chords will sound sad and dark.

Now lets take a look at where chords come from and how we can use chords diatonic to a key to start a foundation for a piece of music.

Remember how we derived the major scale from the chromatic scale using the WWHWWWH formula?

• The Chromatic Scale starting on C:

C - C#/Db - D - D#/Eb - E - F - F#/Gb - G - G#/Ab - A - A#/Bb - B - (C)

• The Formula:

W - W - H - W - W - W - H

• The C Major Scale

C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C

We can take this even farther and now starting figuring out the chords that are diatonic to the major scale. For right now we are only going to discuss triadic chords, (only 3 notes.)

To figure out our diatonic chords we take our major scale and apply a number beneath each note:

C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 1

*Note - I'm calling the high octave C a 1 and not 8 because we will be reapeating this scale after 7 and I don't want you to confuse 1 and 8 as being seperate notes.

Using these numbers we can now build a chord off of each note/number of the scale. In other words, we will have some kind of C chord, some kind of D chord etc.

Lets start with C.

To find what kind of C chord belongs to a C Major scale we simply take 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of the scale, ie C - E - G.

C-E-G is now our C Major triad. The reason this is a "Major" triad is because there are two full whole steps between C and E and then a half step and a whole step from E to G. (C to D is a whole step and D to E is a whole step, E to F is a half step and F to G is a whole step.)

Playing these three notes simulatenously will give a happy uplifting sound, staying true to its major quality, thus C Major just like scale it from which it is derived.

To recap:

C-E-G is 1-3-5 in the scale. Because the "root" note of this chord begins withthe 1st note in the scale we call this our "1 chord."

Vocab: Root - the base note upon which a chord is built. (Not to be confused with "bass note," which is not always the root note, but we will get into this later.)

So if C Major is our 1 Chord then lets look at our 2 Chord or a chord built on the second note of the scale, in this case D.

To find what kind of D chord belongs to a C Major scale we take 2nd, 4th, and 6th notes of the scale, ie D - F - A.

D-F-A is now our D Minor triad. The reason this is a "Minor" triad is because there is a whole step and then only a half step between D and F, and then 2 whole steps from F to A. (D to E is a whole step and E to F is a half step, F to G is a whole step and G to A is a whole step.)

This is the exact opposite of a regular major chord giving this "minor" chord a darker, sadder but possibly more interesting and more emotional tone.

So lets recap:

1-2-3 ---> C-E-G ---> WWWH ---> C Major Triad

2-4-6 ---> D-F-A ---> WHWW ----> D Minor Triad

Using this pattern, which is essentially building chords using every other note, repeating after the octave, (1-3-5, 2-4-6, 3-5-7, 4-6-1, 5-7-2, 6-1-3, 7-3-5,) try to figure out the "3" chord, "4" chord, "5" chord and "6" like the above 1 and 2 chords. Don't do the "7" chord, because it is special and I will explain why below.

Check your answers with this list of all the diatonic chords of the major scale.

C Major Scale: C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C

1-2-3 ---> C-E-G ---> WWWH ---> C Major Triad

2-4-6 ---> D-F-A ---> WHWW ----> D Minor Triad

3-5-7 ---> E-G-B ---> WHWW ----> E Minor Triad

4-6-1 ---> F-A-C ---> WWWH ----> F Major Triad

5-7-2 ---> G-B-D ---> WWWH ----> G Major Triad

6-1-3 ---> A-C-E ---> WHWW ----> A Minor Triad

***7-2-4 ---> B-D-F ---> WHWH ----> B Diminished Triad

***The chord built on the 7th scale degree is different than all other in that it is composed of 2 combinations of a whole step and a half step, (B to C is a half step, C to D is a whole step, D to E is a whole step, E to F is half step.) This is a combination of two sets of minor intervals that give this a dark and very dissonant harmonic sound.

Diminished chords have their place in jazz and classical music but are rarely seen in most pop/rock styles of music because of their dissonant sound.

Remember that these chord formula's don't only apply to the key of C Major. All 12 keys have chords built on them and each can be derived from its respective major scale.

For example:

• In the key of A (A - B - C# - D - E - F# - G# - A):

1-2-3 ---> A-C#-E ---> WWWH ---> A Major Triad

2-4-6 ---> B-D-F# ---> WHWW ----> B Minor Triad

etc.

• In the key of Eb (Eb - F - G - Ab - Bb - C - D - Eb):

1-2-3 ---> Eb-G-Bb ---> WWWH ---> Eb Major Triad

2-4-6 ---> F-Ab-C ---> WHWW ----> F Minor Triad

etc.

Though all these scales and chords are different they all retain commonalities.

Besides the fact that you can plug any scale into the respective chord slots, the chords themselves are a pattern.

All chords built on 1 are Major

All chords built on 2 are Minor

All chords built on 3 are Minor

All chords built on 4 are Major

All chords built on 5 are Major

All chords built on 6 are Minor

All chords built on 7 are Diminished.

Memorize that, and you'll be well on your way to being able to play and understand most any pop/rock/country/classical songs.

In the next chapter we'll look at taking all that you've learned in these chapters and actually applying to real playing situations.