Hey Friend,

Because we're going to do some in-depth study of chords, expect  this series to go pretty long. I haven't yet determined how granular we'll get, but I can guarantee it will be a learning process for both of us!

I've learned a lot about chord theory (and music theory in general) over the past several years, but I know there's a lot more for me to learn, so this is going to be fun.

The key of D major should be fairly easy for most people, even brand new beginners. The open D, A and G chords are ones that everyone learns in the beginning, and even challenging chords such as G, F#m and Bm have substitutes we'll use so everyone can play along.

It will be a little difficult for me to work out the tabs and exercises while I'm traveling, but we'll play catch-up once I get settled back in Orlando. 

Okay, here we go. The key of D major consists of the following notes: D E F# G A B C# (D)

As I've said before, the notes in a key are used to construct each chord in the key's basic complement. What I mean by that is, a key has base chords that always work within the key. For D major, those chords are: D, Em, F#m, G, A, Bm and C#dim

Are you limited to using only those chords? No, but these provide a foundation, a starting place. Once you're comfortable with the base chords, you can really open up your ceativity by delving into additional chord forms. Don't worry, we'll look at those as we move through the series.

That will have to do it for today - gotta run! See you tomorrow.

Peace~

Dave