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Diatonic Chords: Developing Your Musicianship II Lesson 2 Study Guide
Diatonic Chords: Developing Your Musicianship II Lesson 2 Study Guide
Your Musicianship II
Lesson 2 Study Guide
Diatonic Chords
The definition of Diatonic is “in the key of.” For example in the key of F Major, the
following notes are diatonic because they are part of the scale:
A note other than the notes in the F Major scale, for example an Ab, is considered not
diatonic to the key of F Major.
To identify whether a chord is diatonic to a certain key or not, you must identify
whether each of the notes that make up that chord are diatonic. Here are the diatonic
triads in the key of F Major:
Notice that all of the notes in each chord are diatonic to the key of F Major, which
means that all of the chords are also diatonic. The pattern of major and minor triads in a
major scale is always the same:
I II- III- IV V VI- VII-
When you add 7ths to each of the chords, you get the following:
Notice that all of the notes in each chord are diatonic to the key of F Major, which
means that all of the chords are also diatonic. The pattern of 7th chords in a major scale
is always the same:
IMaj7 II-7 III-7 IVMaj7 V7 VI-7 VII-7b5
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Popular Chord Progressions
There are four main popular chord progressions we learned this week:
I IV V I
IV III- II- I
- -
I VI- I
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IV V VI-
Minor 6th Intervals
A minor 6th interval is one half step smaller than a Major 6th and one half step larger
than a Perfect 5th. Below are a few examples of minor 6th intervals:
C to Ab G to Eb D to Bb F# to D B to G#
Ab Eb F# Bb
C G D D
Minor 7th Intervals
A minor 7th interval is one half step smaller than a Major 7th and one half step larger
than a Major 6th. A minor 7th is also one whole step below an octave.
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Below are a few examples of minor 7th intervals:
D to C F# to E G to F Bb to Ab
F# Bb Ab
D C E G F
Dominant 7th Chords
Adding the flat 7th interval to a major triad will produce a Dominant 7th chord. The
pattern of major and minor 3rds in the Dominant 7th chord is as follows:
• A Major 3rd between the root and the 3rd
• A Minor 3rd between the 3rd and the 5th
• A Minor 3rd between the 5th and the 7th
For example, when we add a Bb to a C Major triad, we get a C7. Note the intervals
between each chord tone:
Major 3rd Minor 3rd Minor 3rd
C7
Bb (b7)
G (5)
E (3)
C (1)
Bb
C E G
Major Minor Minor
rd rd rd
3 3 3