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Have you ever tried to figure out the chords to a song and become overwhelmed by the
sheer volume of chords available to you? And have you noticed that some chords
sound better together than others, while some sound downright discordant together?
Although any chord may in principle be followed by any other chord, some combinations
are just more pleasing to the ear. That's because chords are related to one another, like
a family and you can even jump from one family, or key, to another with some practice.
All the chords in a chord family will sound good together because all the notes
contained in them belong to the same scale. But how do we know what chords go with
which family?
Luckily, there is a system for determining the set of chords that will best harmonize with
the melody of a song. The following are 10 concepts and how-tos for playing chord
families:
2. Musical alphabet.
The letters in the musical alphabet run from A through G then circle back around to A,
where the cycle begins again. You can start at any letter in the musical alphabet and go
around the seven letters until you arrive back to the letter where you began.
3. Musical scales.
A scale contains the seven notes of the musical alphabet. For simplicity's sake, let's
work in the key of C, which is one of the most common and easiest keys to play in as it
uses all natural notes (no sharps or flats). A C major scale looks like this:
CDEFGABC
5. Roman numerals.
Now, let's assign a Roman numeral for each letter in the key of C:
CDEFGAB
I ii iii IV V vi viii°
The uppercase numerals represent major chords and the lowercase, minor chords. If
there is a degree symbol after the numeral, it indicates a diminished chord.