Hey Friend,

You can look at the major scale as kinda like a gateway drug - once you get started with it, you get introduced to the natural minor scale, which leads to the harmonic minor and melodic minor scales. Pentatonic scales are derived from the major scale as well.

You may have also heard about scale modes. They have fancy names like Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian and more. There's seven of these bad boys, but they're not as bad as they sound. 

We're going to come back to all this later. 

When you're armed with the knowledge of the major scale, you also have unlocked the the chords that work best within the key of that scale.

Again, we can use a pattern to list out each chord that belongs to the key. Let's write out the C major scale and work with it to get the best chords.

When we talk about chords, the major scale does more than just give us notes that belong in the key. It also tells us the chord name for each chord. It doesn't tell us which chord to use, but it gets us close. 

First, we're going to have a chord from the C family. Next there will be a D chord of some sort. Then and E chord, and so on...

There are many types of chords to choose from. There are major chords, minor chords, diminished chords, augmented chords, dominant, major and minor seven chords, suspended chords, add chords...

Th list continues on...

Fortunately, there are only three types of chords basic to the major scale. Here's the pattern you use to apply to the scale.

Before I get you too far into this, Roman numerals are traditionally used to signify the type of chord to use, so let's look at those real quickly.

Major chords use capital Roman numerals (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII).

Minor chords use lower case Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii).

Diminished chords use the 'degree' symbol (little circle to the upper right corner of the number), but sometimes the symbol isn't available, so I would use 'dim.' If we write it out normally (not using Roman numerals), we use 'dim.'

Here's how the chord pattern looks using Roman Numerals:

Applying it to the chords in the key of C major, here's what we've got:

There's a really cool bonus you get from the scale notes and how they work with the guitar chords in the key. Each one of the above chords can be constructed completely from the notes in the key. Yup, all these chords are made from the C major scale.

C major (C) is C, E and G. D minor (Dm) is D, F and A. Even B diminished (Bdim) is B, D and F.

Each one of these chords comes from looking at the chord name in question, making that the one note in the chord. Starting on the one note, count to the right to three. That's the three note. Then count to the right from there to five. That's your five note.

Those are the three notes of the triad - or chord.

This is a really powerful concept and one you can use to really understand chord construction.

Try it out for yourself with another key. Write out the scale and list the chords you have to work with in the key. Then practice writing out the notes used to construct each chord.

And yes, power chord construction works here, too. Power chords come from using the one and the five notes from the scale. The C5 power chord is C and G. The A5 power chord is A and E. The only exception here is that Bdim chord, because the diminished chord uses the flattened fifth note. But you can always use the B5 power chord if you need a substitution.

You can get all the printable power chord charts in Easy Power Chords. It's a handy reference to various chord shapes and locations on the guitar neck. Get a copy of Easy Power Chords right here today.

Peace~

Dave