Ok and thanks.
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So if using the key of A the chords would be A, Bm, C#m, D, E and F#m?
Or in the key of C the chords would be C, Dm, Em, F, G and Am?
Is that right?
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Yes and it works for every key. If you want to figure out the minor equivalent you can do it two ways.
1 Use the Relative Major but start with the 6th interval or 2 Use the minor scale chord progression min dim Maj min min Maj Maj
For beginners it’s easier to use the Relative Major and start from the 6th interval. This way you don’t have to deal with the Diminished chord.
For example Am is the relative min of C using the Chords in the C major scale starting at the 6th interval you get Am C Dm Em F G.
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Relative minor keys (and their relationship with the circle of fifths) were also mentioned in this live class (from 31:50 to 43:28):
Pages 31-33 of the PDF attachment show the diatonic chords of C major and A minor along with the corresponding scale degrees. The same pattern can be used to arrive at the diatonic chords of all major and relative minor keys.
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I’ll just start with major keys I think.
Do you mean just using M-m-m-M-M-m pattern as “the 6th interval” is a new term for me?
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There are major and minor keys. Each major key has a relative minor key which means that they share the same 7 scale tones and the same 7 diatonic chords. For example, the relative minor key of C major is A minor: both keys have only natural notes and their diatonic chords are the same, although the scale degrees are different.
C major
Notes: C D E F G A B
Diatonic chords: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim
One way to derive the relative minor key is to take the 6th degree of the major scale in question and use that note (in our example it’s A) as the tonic of the relative minor key.
A minor
Notes: A B C D E F G
Diatonic chords: Am, Bdim, C, Dm, Em, F, G
You will notice that e.g. G major is the “V” chord in C major (i.e. G is the 4th scale degree), but it’s the VII chord in A minor.
Note: there’s the concept of parallel keys where the tonic of the major scale and of its parallel minor are the same, e.g. C major and C minor. However, parallel keys do not share the same notes or diatonic chords as the parallel minor has the 3rd, 6th and 7th degrees flattened. For example:
C major scale tones: C D E F G A B
C minor scale tones: C D Eb F G Ab Bb
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The short answer is Yes. using your examples
Stating with the 6th chord in A you will find the relative minor of F#m so the chord in F# minor would be F#m Gdim A Bm C#m D E
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That bit I know from the Key Chord Chart I have.
Had to check what you mean by ‘diatonic chords’. According to Google it’s " A chord which is diatonic is simply a chord built from notes of the key . So in the key of C, the chord C major (C, E, G) would be diatonic to the key of C because its 3 notes are part of the C major scale."
I get that as that is the M-m-m-M-M-m pattern.
Thanks for your help with this but to be honest I find the whole keys, chords, scales thing confusing at best and can’t seem to make head nor tail of it. I have another Major Scales chart downloaded from the JG site that has T T S T T T S at the top which looks very similar to the Key Chord Chart. Where does this fit?
I started to go through @Richard_close2u The Circle of Fifths - where does it come from, where does it go? and got to part 4 0r 5 before it became a blur with too much to take in!
I know that the theory is that some notes sound better with certain scales but the other day I was playing a C major backing track (not realising that it was in C) and improvising using the A minor pentatonic scale. All sound OK to me!
Actually it wasn’t that long ago that I realised that the A minor pentatonic scale was not the Am pentatonic scale!! 
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Stuart
This is the intervals between the notes in the major scale, so on one string only, two frets T (tone) or one fret S (semitone).
So root to 2 = tone
2 to 3 = tone
3 to 4 = semitone
4 to 5 = tone
5 to 6 = tone
6 to 7 - tone
7 to root (octave) = semitone
On each of these notes there is a diatonic chord and that that where the
comes into the equation.
Hope that helps.
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And they should because the A minor pentatonic scale (i.e. a scale having 5 notes) is a subset of the A minor scale (the 2nd and 6th degrees, in this case the notes B and F are omitted) which has the same notes as the C major scale. That’s one important discovery you have made for yourself.
Now, try to improvise using for example the B major (Ab minor pentatonic) scale over that same backing track in C major. How does it sound? Try it with G major (Em pentatonic) then. Which sounds better? Which has more notes that sound good with the backing track in C major? Theory will provide you a systematic answer to those questions, even if it’s your ears that will give the final verdict.
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Every other string on the e & a string- ok
where you start from is the name of the key - right?
Maj Min Min, Maj Maj Minor - ok
Then play the scale from whichever position(s) you know this scale in - ok*.
Magicly rip a (very linear) solo - um. ok i guess with practice.
But. how do i know the key in the first place? when i walk into the jam session (super hyperthetical proposition at this point) - will they tell me?
w
*https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/major-scale-pattern-1-mt-304
Just come back to this one (again) and am confused (again) re the G major scale that he shows. Justin starts off with play a note, miss a note, play a note on the top two strings, which is over the 5 frets - 3, 5, 7, but the G major scale (as I know it) is over 4 frets starting on fret 2. See below.
Why the difference?
Pattern 1 is what you posted. Justin isn’t playing pattern 1 he is playing 3 notes per string but you don’t need to now that all you need to know is he is playing the notes G A B C D E and the corresponding chords that go with those notes. Which are G Am Bm C D Em
Here is all the notes on the fret board you will see that the notes repeat themselves over all the strings. Notice the note B is on the 7th fret of the E string and also on the 2 fret A string.
For this exercise Justin is choosing to use the note B on the E string to make the M m m pattern on one string then the M M m pattern on the next string.
That bit I understand but when he is improvising over the G, Em, Am and C chords he looks like he is playing the G major scale, which has different/additional notes to G A B C D E. He also mentions using the G major pentatonic scale which we don’t know at this point. Not done in Grade 3 as far as I can see.
Stuart the amount of questions you ask about blues and scales you should know both the minor and major pentatonic scales by now. You where asking about likes the other day and why they fit over some chords and not others. Maybe you shouldn’t jump around between lesson so much or stick with one thing at a time until you understand it.
In Sept of last year you where asking the same questions in this thread. This lesson is about chord not scales. Justin does some improvising but that’s not the point of this lesson. he’s demonstrating how knowing how to figure out the chord in a key will help you later on.
If you understand how to figure out the chord in a key then you are done with this lesson move on.
Err no. Why would you assume that? I only know (been taught via the lessons) the A minor pentatonic scale Pattern 1. I’m only at the end of Grade 3 and guessing that the others will come in later Grades.
May be you are right. I ask questions because I’m curious.
After all this I’m not sure I am. Justin says that you can use chords in a key in any order, so if someone is playing C, Am, Em and G how would I know that is in the key of G?
Why are you asking all these question if you don’t know the scale they belong to?
Then you know all 12 minor pentatonic scales Pattern 1. the root note is the letter of the scale’s name. G minor pentatonic is the same patter but starts on the note G and so on.
Buy listening to where the chord progression resolves. This take practice by learning and playing songs and using your ears.
@Stuartw Regarding the C - Am - Em - G progression and knowing which key it’s in, you need to know (or at least be aware of) several things. The first is the major scale formula with which you can find out the notes of a given major scale. Then you need to know the nature of diatonic chords within a certain key, i.e. the (3-note) chords that can be created from the notes of the given scale (and only those notes).
Below, there’s a small diagram I’ve just made in Excel showing the keys that this C - Am - Em - G progression can be in, with the chords highlighted in orange. The lone non-diatonic progression is the only one I could think of off the top of my head as non-diatonic progressions are not in the focus now. Relative minor keys are not discussed, either.
Your first guideposts should be the major chords, C and G. In the diagram I highlighted the scale degrees where major chords can fall in green; these are degrees I, IV and V. They are major chords because they contain the major third in relation to the major scale of their root note.
You can see that two of these major degrees, IV and V, are adjacent, i.e. the root notes of these major chords also have to be adjacent. But C and G are not adjacent, so they cannot be the IV and V chords. That leaves us with the option of one of them being I and the other being IV or V.
Now, you can either write out the two keys as I did, or you can examine the interval relationship of C and G (the notes). And this is where another key skill, knowing the notes and intervals on the fretboard, comes into play. What you can see in the diagram written out in letters and numbers can also be seen on the fretboard in shapes. Which notes do you have at fret 3 on strings 6 and 5? That’s right, G and C. C is a perfect fourth above that G, and G (or its octave, to take the pitch difference into consideration) is a perfect fifth above C.
Now on to the two minor chords, Am and Em. In every major key, the ii, iii and vi chords are minor because they contain the minor third in relation to the major scale of their root note.
Again, you have two adjacent degrees, ii and iii, but A and E are not adjacent, so they cannot be the ii and iii chords. One of them must be vi and the other has to be the ii or iii. Writing out the scales is still an option, but checking the interval between A and E is not difficult either. Since there are two open strings of those notes, you don’t need to worry about the fret position. The interval distance between A and E is the same as the interval distance between C and G: it’s a perfect fourth/fifth relationship. This is what I tried to highlight with the arrows in the diagram below. (Imagine arrows from Am to Em and C to G in the same lines, too.)
What remains is to fit these chords into the diatonic chord formula and check their degrees. You can see this under “Chord progression”.
So, you need 3 things:
- Know the notes and intervals on the fretboard
- Know the major scale formula
- Know the diatonic chords of the major keys
Without these, it’s like trying to run a marathon without having learned to walk first. If you have subscribed to the practical music theory course, make sure to spend time on the first 3 grades until you get comfortable with these topics. There’s no need to rush things.
OK, that makes sense. Still not sure what to do with them all though!
I don’t know what you mean by ‘resolves’!
I always thought (obviously incorrectly) that the key of the chord progression was determined by the first chord, so taking the example above ( C - Am - Em - G) this is actually in the key of C not G.
@Jozsef Thanks for your detailed response which is going to take me some time to work through and makes sense of. I may come back to you
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