Diatonic Chords

Every major key comes with a family of seven chords, and once you know how to find them you can work out the chords of any song in any key. This chapter explains diatonic chords on guitar in plain terms and gets them under your fingers.

You start by harmonizing the major scale: building a triad on each note of C major using only notes from the scale. The pattern that comes out, major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, diminished, is the same in every key. Then you play the common chord progressions built from that family: I-IV-V for rock and roll and blues, I-V-vi-IV for pop, and ii-V-I, the jazz cadence, and learn why the V chord pulls so hard toward home. The last lesson introduces the Nashville number system, the session players' shorthand that lets one chart work in any key.

Every tab exercise plays in the browser with a click. Say the numbers out loud as you play, and transposing stops being a puzzle.