Featuring the ultimate chords in major keys chart – find out what chords are in all 12 keys, and how these chords are built.
- Excerpt taken from Easy Peasy Guitar Music Theory: for Beginners book.
- Learn songs quickly on the fly and write your own songs using popular major key chord progressions using our reference diagram, ‘The Ultimate Major Keys Chord Chart‘
Developing a basic knowledge of the theory behind how chords are put together will go a long way towards developing your guitar-playing skills.
Learning songs you love on the fly, jamming, writing melodies and soloing will eventually become second nature once you know the formulas behind song keys and their respective chords.
Let’s get straight to it by getting down to the brass tacks of some basic need-to-know music theory.
Where do the chords in major key signatures come from?
I’m going to break this down into some quick-fire facts. We don’t want to get bogged down with complicated jargon that often seems to come hand-in-hand with music theory:
- There are 7 chords in each of the 12 major keys.
- These 7 chords are built from the seven notes of the major scale, with each scale note becoming the root for building a specific chord type.
- The 7 chords in a major key are known as ‘diatonic’. A diatonic chord and chord progression simply means the chord(s) belong to a specific scale or key. A diatonic scale is a musical scale that consists of five tones (whole steps), and two semitones (half steps).
- When you hear a chord described as being from a ‘scale degree’, this describes the location of a particular note in a scale relative to the first root/tonic note of the scale.
- The seven diatonic chords in each major key signature which are shown in the chart coming up in the post, are known as ‘triads’.
- Triads are created by assembling three notes which are intervals (distances) of a third apart. This simply means after the root note, you miss a note, then add the next one on, miss a note, and add the next one.
- A triad (chord) is identified by the root (key) and the sound quality. The quality (does the chord sound happy, sad, anticipatory etc.) is determined by the interval between the root and other notes in the triad.
- There are three main diatonic triads in a major key: major, minor and diminished. Each triad is created from the interval sequences; 1-3-5, 1-b3-5, and 1-b3-b5, respectively. We’ll explore this idea next.
How are major, minor and diminished chords built?
So now you’ve learned the seven chords in a major key are created by taking each note of the major scale and building a triad from it.
If we take a G major chord – that is, the first chord in the key of G major – as an example, you’ll see the chord is created by layering the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes from its parent G major scale together, like so:
The 7 notes of the G Major scale = 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7
G – A – B -C -D -E -F#
The 3 notes of the G major chord (triad) =
1 – 3 – 5
G – B – D = G major triad
Major triads, we now know, are constructed by combining the root, third and fifth note of the major scale. These notes are assembled in thirds.
Another way of describing the distance between the notes is that there’s a major third between the root and second note ( G-B: major 3rd = 4 frets/semitones), and a perfect fifth between the root and third note (G-D: perfect 5th = 7 frets/semitones).
Minor triads are made from a minor third interval between the root and second note, and a perfect fifth from the root to 3rd note. Let’s take a look at the chord that’s built from the second degree in the key of G major, which is an A minor chord:
A minor notes = A – C – E
These notes are stacked intervals of 3rds like all the triads are in a major key. The only difference is, unlike a major triad, the first two notes (A-C in our example) aren’t a major 3rd apart, but a minor third.
Why is this?
Remember your note interval basics: A-B are a tone (whole step) apart, but B-C are a semitone (half step) apart.
So, the distance between the A-C notes is one and a half tones (steps), which equals a minor third interval.
B minor is the chord built from the 3rd note degree of the scale in our example key. It contains the B (root) – D (minor 3rd) – F# (major 3rd from the D and a perfect 5th from the B root).
Pro Tip
An interval of a minor third is also described as being a flattened (or flatted, depending on who you're listening to) third. Be it a melody (single notes) or harmony (chords), whenever you see a minor third involved, you know the sound quality will have a sad, dark flavour.
The next chord built from the 4th note degree in the key of G major is a C major chord, which comprises layered thirds:
C – E – G
The chord built from the 5th scale degree layers thirds starting on the D root note, creating the D major chord:
D – F# – A
The chord built from the 6th degree is an E minor and contains the following notes:
E – G – B.
Here, intervals of a minor 3rd and major 3rd are stacked.
Diminished chord: The oddball
So, the chords 1-6 in a major key are a combination of three major chords (degrees 1-4-5) and three minor chords (degrees 2-3-6).
The chord built from the last note in a major scale – the 7th degree – is a diminished chord.
In the key of G, this is F# diminished: F# – A – C.
Diminished chords have the interval formula 1-b3-b5. That is, they contain a root note (1), a minor third (b3 = 3 semitones above the root), and a flat (diminished) 5th (b5 = 6 semitones above the root ).
The combination of stacking the minor third and diminished 5th intervals creates a chord that has been described as sounding unhinged, unsettling and even a little wrong.
For this reason, diminished chords aren’t commonplace in popular music, but when used correctly as a leading tone, they sound cunningly clever.
Roman numeral system in music
Because there are different types of chords within a major (and minor) key, they are labelled in a way to identify their function within a key.
Roman numerals are accordingly used to pinpoint the specific scale degree of each chord’s root note.
It’s also common for the sound quality of the chord (if it’s major or minor) to be indicated by an uppercase or lowercase Roman numeral like this:
I – IV – V indicate major scale degree chords ii – iii –vi indicate minor scale degree chords
If you see a Roman numeral like this: viiºor this; iiº, a diminished chord is in play. Augmented chords are represented by uppercase Roman numerals with a + sign next to them (for example, V+).
One pattern to fit them all
The brilliant thing about the formulas you’ve just learned is that they apply to all chords within all keys.
That is so amazing for your musical learning journey. I’ll say it again: the chord and scale formulas are the same for all 12 major keys.
All you need to know are the notes that make up a key, then apply the major key chord formula.
You’ll instantly be able to play a humongous amount of chord progressions in every major key known to man in the Western music kingdom:
Fig 1.0 – The 7 diatonic chords found in a major key, including 3 major chords, 3 minor chords and 1 diminished chord.
Major chords degrees: I – IV – V (1 – 4 – 5)Minor chords degrees: ii – iii – vi (2 – 3 – 6)Diminished chords scale degree: vii° (7)
Let’s apply this to the key of C major: C – D – E -F -G -A -B. If you attach these notes to the major key chord type sequence that you have just learned, you will have a collection of chords that blend nicely together.
They will inspire you to experiment and come up with numerous chord progressions.
C Major – D minor – E minor – F Major – G Major – A minor – B diminished
If you want to find out what the chords are in every possible major key that sounds good together, look no further.
The Ultimate Major Key Chords Chart below shows you all you need to know.
Use this chart as a handy reference practice and composing guide:
Fig 1.1 – The Ultimate Major Key Chords Chart – music theory reference diagram perfect for musicians, guitar students, piano students, etc.
What ‘The Ultimate Major Key Chord Chart’ shows you:
- The order of the 7 diatonic chords in all 12 major keys.
- Roman numerals are used to express each chord’s position relative to the root (tonic) of the key known as degrees.
- The 3 primary major chords are highlighted in red.
- The 3 minor chords in each major key are highlighted in aqua green.
- The single diminished chord that occurs in each major key is shown in lime.
- The *chord scale degree names are assigned to each chord; tonic is the first chord, dominant the 5th, and the leading tone is the name of the chord built from the 7th scale degree, for example.
*The purpose of chord scale degree names is to identify each chord’s distinctive function within the key relative to the tonic chord.
For example, the leading tone (7th-degree chord) gives a strong sense of moving towards and resolving, to the tonic. Tension and resolution are central to tonal harmony.
- The order of tones (whole steps) and semitones (half steps) create a major scale (T-T-S-T-T-T-S).
Use the chords in a major key chart to help you:
- Learn your favourite songs fast – figuring out the next chord in a song becomes easy when you know what chords fit together in a key.
- Writing your own music – knowing how to build chord progressions will help you create your musical arrangements.
- Improvise and jam – wondering what the relative minor chord is in a key you’re not familiar with, such as F#? A quick look at the chart above, and you’ll know it’s D# minor. Sorted.
