arotae.com

I still have the old cafepress site with the album-specific artwork:

http://www.cafepress.com/arotae

However, I now have a Zazzle site that gives some more options on what you can get:

http://www.zazzle.com/arotae

Now that we have talked about all the modes and looked at the personality of each, how to get it from the chromatic scale and all that, we need to look at how to get chords from it.

I have heard it said that music is made from chords (not scales). Even though this is true, chords are made from scales. This is why we looked at the scales first.

A great and practical tool is called the ‘circle of 5ths’. Circle of 5ths

This tool is much more simple than it appears at first glance.

Let’s look at the chromatic again:

Ab – A – Bb – B – C – C# – D – Eb – E – F – F#

Now, let’s compare these 2 lines that are lined up:

Ab – Eb – Bb – F – C  – G – D – E     – A –   B –   F# – C#
F   -  C   – G  -  D  – A – E – B – F# – C# – Ab – Eb – Bb

(When I first learned this pattern, I called it the ‘BEAD’ pattern. See the repeating beadgcf.)

OK, so it might look more confusing than magical. But, it is very magical, believe me. The notes are all lined up in a very sweet pattern.

Take the key of C again: C d e F G a b
Now, let’s start with C and skip every other note:
1. C e G – C Major
2. d F a – d minor
3. e G b – e minor
4. F a C – F Major
5. G b d – G Major
6. a C e – a minor
7. b d F – b dim

(You may have noticed the FACE and EGBDF [Every Good Boy Does Fine] patterns in there from those elementary music classes.)(Also, notice that when you read the notes of the chords from top to bottom in the list that they read like CdeFGab.)

Let’s look at the two lines again without all the extra:
F – C – G – D – E
G – D – A – E – B

Do you see the pattern yet? Let me put some numbers in there:
4 – 1 – 5
2 – 6 – 3

Let’s take another look at the chords. However, this time we will just look at the numbers and drop the letters.
1. 1-3-5
2. 2-4-6
3. 3-5-7
4. 4-6-1 (Remember that 8 is 1 on the next octave up)
5. 5-7-2 (9 is 2 on the next octave up)
6. 6-1-3 (… and so forth… this is important later…)
7. 7-2-4

The pattern is for making the chords. When you are on the bottom row, you go up for the next note of the chord. When you are on the top row you go down to the right for the next note of the chord.

Phew, it’s OK to read this one a few times… really.

This stuff needs to sink in.  Let me know if i need to clarify any particular part.

I have put together a custom Amazon store and picked items that pertain to our topics. I hope you enjoy the picks.