Scales
Chords are a major piece of music and work together in harmony. This is why
I thought I'm going to cover the basics of scales in this section. Clicking
on a key loads the scale for that key:
Orange and
blue
keys match your selected scale while the
green key
indicates the key, in which the current scale is.
Notation
Chord notation was invented because it eliminated the constant need to write down notes
on a sheet. In the following table you can see the symbols of a chord, applied one at a time
on the chord "C". Of course this is applicable to all the other eleven keys. My goal here is to visualize
those meaningless letters, so by clicking on a chord in
Example Chord or any chord that you might
come across on this page, it takes you to the
Chord Keyboard.
| Symbol |
Meaning |
Example Chord |
Notes |
|
Major |
C |
C - E - G |
| m |
Minor |
Cm |
C - Eb - G |
| aug |
Augmented |
Caug |
C - E - Ab |
| dim |
Diminished |
Cdim |
C - E - Gb |
| m7(b5) |
Half-Diminished Seven |
Cm7(b5) |
C - Eb - Gb - Bb |
| add2 |
Addition of 2 |
Cadd2 |
C - D - E - G |
| sus2 / 2 |
Suspension to 2 |
Csus2 / C2 |
C - D - G |
| add4 |
Addition of 4 |
Cadd4 |
C - E - F - G |
| sus4 / 4 |
Suspension to 4 |
Csus4 / C4 |
C - F - G |
| b5 |
Transposing 5th a semitone down |
C(b5) |
C - E - Gb |
| 6 |
Addition of 6 |
C6 |
C - E - G - A |
| 7 |
Dominant Seven |
C7 |
C - E - G - Bb |
| Maj7 |
Addition of Major 7 |
CMaj7 |
C - E - G - B |
| (b9) |
Addition of b9 |
C(b9) |
C - E - G - Db |
| 9 |
Addition of 9 |
C9 |
C - E - G - D |
| 11 |
Addition of 11 |
C11 |
C - E - G - F |
| 13 |
Addition of 13 |
C13 |
C - E - G - A |
| no5 |
Ignoring 5th |
Cno5 |
C - E |
You can combine any of those modifiers to craft your own - personal - chord.
Though this is a lot of fun, it probably ain't for the listener, as they have to listen
to your complex chord that may or may not sound the prettiest. Fortunately, music is not
made of one single chord - the magic lies in the clever combination of chords, which is why
I left you some sequences to play around with.
A
complete list of this chord notation is available over at Wikipedia
if you want some more details.
Sequences
This collection of chord sequences was collected over past years, mainly by experimenting on the
Yamaha PSR S-770.
The overall style of those chords is very funky, sometimes jazzy or is just pop.
Chords are noted in the english form.
Click on a chord to show visualization.
This section is not yet complete