Help on Major key Harmony

[fiery_kid]

Hi people, i read the section on Major key harmony but I don't understand how you go about deriving chords like E sus 4 and Fsus 2 on the last section "Other possibilities with chords", as they dont seemed to be following the "Minor-Minor-Major-Major-Minor-Diminished" style. Can anyone enlighten me on how these chords are derived from the root chord-for e.g. Csus2 and F(add9)? Thanks!

[cyberfret]

Those chords that are listed still come from just the major scale. When you learn that the chord built on the 1st degree of a major scale is a major chord, and the chord built on the 2nd degree is minor.....you are learning the most basic chords that come from the scale. And by far those 3 note major and minor chords are the staple of music. But there are other chord that can be built from the scale as well. So in that lesson I have listed some other possibilities of chords that can be built from each degree of the scale.

Here are the notes from all of the chords listed in that lesson that can be built from the 1st degree of the scale. You will see that all of the notes are still in the C major scale. So as a song writer, if you are looking for something a little different than major and minor chords....you might try some of these.


C - C E G
C5 - C G
C6 - C E G A
C6/9 - C E G A D
Cmaj7 - C E G B
Cmaj7(9) - C E G B D
Cmaj7(13) - C E G B A
C(add9) - C E G D
Csus2 - C D G
Csus4 - C F G

Learning the order of those basic chords is still very important. You will just build on that as you learn more.



--Shawn