{"id":412,"date":"2023-11-13T17:00:52","date_gmt":"2023-11-13T17:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/muzictrain.com\/blog\/?p=412"},"modified":"2025-04-22T14:21:36","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T14:21:36","slug":"how-are-chords-scales-and-keys-related","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/muzictrain.com\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/11\/13\/how-are-chords-scales-and-keys-related\/","title":{"rendered":"How are Chords, Scales and Keys are Related"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float: left; width: 300px; padding-right: 10px; font-size: 11px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" title=\"1-4-5 Chord Theory\" src=\"https:\/\/muzictrain.com\/images\/Degrees-C-Major.png\" alt=\"null\" width=\"100%\" height=\"\"><\/div>\n<p>The &#8220;key&#8221; of a song is simply the root note of the scale the song is built on. So, for example, we say a song is in the key of D Major when the song is built on the D Major scale. D is the root note of the scale.<\/p>\n<p>Specific chords are associated with the different notes of each major scale. And these chords also follow a specific pattern from key to key. This pattern tells us which chords sound good when playing along with songs in each key. <\/p>\n<p>Here is a video describing the relationship between &#8220;keys&#8221;, &#8220;scales&#8221; and &#8220;chords&#8221; as well as briefly introducing the &#8220;1-4-5 Chord Theory&#8221;. This video is taken from the Muzictrain Course for New Guitar Players called &#8220;Guitar Magic&#8221; and is also featured in the instruction book, also called &#8220;Guitar Magic&#8221; soon to be available on Amazon.<br \/>\nThe theoretical aspects of this conversation &#8211; keys\/scales\/chords &#8211; applies to other instruments where chording is important (like Ukulele, Banjo, Piano, Autoharp, and so on) as well.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding:56.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/883491530?badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;quality_selector=1&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" title=\"GM-Lesson-4-edited\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/api\/player.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The bottom line is that to play along with most songs you only need a limited number of chords. The most important ones are what we call the I-IV-V chords &#8211; the 1, 4 and 5 chords for that key.  <\/p>\n<p>These numbers refer to the notes of the major scale. They are &#8220;major&#8221; chords. The I (&#8220;1&#8221;) chord is based on the first note of the major scale. For example, for the key of G the I chord is G Major. The IV chord is C Major, and the V chord is D Major.<\/p>\n<p>You won&#8217;t always need all three, but chances are you will.  And you should also know the most common minor chords for each key. Those are the &#8220;ii&#8221; and &#8220;vi&#8221;. Again, for the key of G these are Am (ii) and Em (vi).<\/p>\n<p>So this is the best way to learn chords &#8211; in SETS for different keys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;key&#8221; of a song is simply the root note of the scale the song is built on. So, for example, we say a song is in the key of D Major when the song is built on the D Major scale. D is the root note of the scale. Specific chords are associated with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,4],"tags":[48,57,53],"class_list":["post-412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guitar-tips","category-playalong","category-theory","tag-guitar-chords","tag-guitar-theory","tag-play-guitar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/muzictrain.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/muzictrain.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/muzictrain.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muzictrain.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muzictrain.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/muzictrain.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459,"href":"https:\/\/muzictrain.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions\/459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muzictrain.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/muzictrain.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muzictrain.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muzictrain.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}