The other day at my Guitar lesson with Joe, we talked about how related chords tie in with the Major scale.
I won’t cover everything that we talked about as there are a few things that still need to sink in, but one of the main takeaways I got was the Major key’s primary chord pattern.
Which goes like this…
Major – minor – minor – Major – Major – minor – diminished
Which also ties in with the Major scale formula.
This means if your playing in “A” your primary related chords would be…
A – Bm – C#m – D – E – F#m – G#dim – A
So my homework for the week was to write out all of the Scale Tone Chords in all Keys.
| Scale Formula | R | T | T | St | T | T | T | St |
| Chord | M | m | m | M | M | m | dim | M |
| Ab Scale | Ab | Bbm | Cm | Db | Eb | Fm | Gdim | Ab |
| A Scale | A | Bm | C#m | D | E | F#m | G#dim | A |
| Bb Scale | Bb | Cm | Dm | Eb | F | Gm | Adim | Bb |
| B Scale | B | C#m | D#m | E | F# | G# | A#dim | B |
| C Scale | C | Dm | Em | F | G | Am | Bdim | C |
| Db Scale | Db | Ebm | Fm | Gb | Ab | Bbm | Cdim | Db |
| D Scale | D | Em | F#m | G | A | Bm | C#dim | D |
| Eb Scale | Eb | Fm | Gm | Ab | Bb | Cm | Ddim | Eb |
| E Scale | E | F#m | G#m | A | B | C#m | D#dim | E |
| F Scale | F | Gm | Am | Bb | C | Dm | Edim | F |
| F# Scale | F# | G#m | A#m | B | C# | D# | E#dim (Fdim) | F# |
| Gb Scale | Gb | Abm | Bbm | Cb (B) | Db | Ebm | Fdim | Gb |
| G Scale | G | Am | Bm | C | D | Em | F#dim | G |
- R = Root Note
- T = Tone
- St = Semitone
- M = Major
- m = minor
- b = flat
- # = sharp
- dim = diminished
Apart from playing them to make sure they are correct, I also used the “Alphabet rule” as a guide to make sure I was using every note letter in each of the scale patterns. The Alphabet rule is another great tip that I got from Barrett’s Guitar Fretboard Workbook.
If there is anything that you can see that I may have missed or have gotten wrong please let me know in the comments below.