In this lesson, we will be interested in the use of the seven chords we discussed last time. It is helpful to think of each chord numerically where it resides in the order. Traditionally, Roman numerals are used to denote the position of each chord.


I. Major 7th
II. minor 7th
III. minor 7th
Iv. Major 7th
V. Dominant 7th
VI. minor 7th
VII. minor 7 flat 5

If we play the chords of a major scale in order like this, we call this a Diatonic progression. A Diatonic scale, such as the C major scale, consists of 5 tones and two semi tones, for a total of 7 notes. Typically, we think of any mode of the C major scale as being Diatonic, since they all contain 5 tones and two semi tones (aka...5whole steps and two half steps).

Once you know which chord type is associated with which Roman numeral in the diatonic progression, then it is a trivial matter to refer to chords in a progression by their numeric value in order to construct your own chord progressions to work with. For example, one popular progression that is heard all the time in music is the 1, 4, 5 progression. Or, simply the I, IV, V progression. Using the chords we learned in the last lesson from the C major scale, this would be,


I. C major 7th
Iv. F Major 7th
V. G Dominant 7th

Go ahead and play through these three chords in order to get a feel for what this progression sounds like. Even try playing the C major scale with these chords, if You have a way to record the progression to audio so you can play the scale over it.

Another progression, which is often seen as more of a jazz like progression, is a 2, 5, 1 progression. Or, II, V, I progression. Again, using chords from the C diatonic progression, we have,


II. D minor 7th
V. G Dominant 7th
I. C Major 7th


Go ahead and play through this progression. If you find the jump from D minor 7th to G Dominant 7th to be a bit daunting, then you can always pick up a closer form of the G Dominant 7th in a lower octave, by playing,

G Dominant 7th
[E3i, A5r, D3i, G4m, B3i, H3i]
[G, D, F, B, D, G]

All we needed for a G Dominant 7th is a G, B, D, F. So, as you can see, the above bar chord has a couple redundant notes. But, it is still a G Dominant 7th nonetheless. So, even though this chord is in a lower octave, it is still a valid substitution in place of the harder to reach G Dominant 7th from before. Now, you might be wondering how it is so easy for me to pick up the notes in a chord like this. Simple, this chord shape is taken straight out of the Lydian mode shape of the C major scale. Hopefully you have been studying your mode shapes and haven't forgotten them. All I had to do is find a G note and then start constructing the chord from there by looking for a configuration of G, B, D, F in any order that worked. So, it really isn't a lot of complicated theory that helps you to find chords you want to play on the neck of the guitar. If you know your mode shapes, you know the 7 notes of the C major scale in order, and you know the notes in the chord you want to construct, you can often very quickly whip out a chord just by looking for the right chord shape inside the right mode shape that contains all the notes required by that chord's notewise formula. So, for homework, I want you to start thinking about working backwards. Before you took the shape of a mode and extracted chord shapes from that mode. Now you have chord shapes, and I want you to start thinking about what sort of mode this chord shape comes from. When you start learning how to think this out from both directions, your ability to move about the guitar neck and put little lead pieces with your rythmic progressions will just start to come alive. Also, feel free to try to find other progressions that sound good together by picking various chords from the diatonic progression and mixing things up to see what you get. You will notice that often some chords just don't seem to work well together. Other times you will pick an arrangement of chords that just sounds great. When you find such chord arrangements, it's a good idea to write them down for future reference. You never know when you will be in a rut and will need to go back and study old material in hopes of finding something that both works and inspires your playing.


Corey J. Bray