This lesson follows on from the Chords In The Major Key lesson by demonstrating the chords of the minor key built from both the Harmonic Minor and Melodic Minor Scales. Chords In A Minor Key This lesson will follow the same concept as the previous lesson but will focus on building chords in a minor key. If…
The lesson shows you how to construct chords from each degree of the major scale so you can create your own chord progressions and understand why certain chords have particular qualities. Chords In The Major Key As bass players, we tend to think of playing just one note at a time and can easily forget…
This bass lesson covers slash chords and inversions. These are important chords for bass players to recognise and understand since they are a direct influence on the bassline. Slash Chords And Inversions The slash chord is often associated with inversions and is represented by two notes separated with a slash. The notes are either side…
More chord construction. This week we look at all the different suspended chords like the sus4, 7sus4 and sus2. Suspended Chords Suspended chords sound just like the name suggests – they have the sound of a suspended tension and want to resolve. This is because suspensions replace the 3rd of a chord with the 4th….
This lesson covers chords that contain simple additions to the triad rather than the seventh chord. The 6, add9 and 6/9 chords Altered Note Chords We have already covered the basics of building chords by stacking thirds, but there are several chords that aren’t a consequence of stacking. The first group are known as added note chords,…
The chord construction lessons continue with Altered Extensions. These are the extensions of the b9, #9, #11 and b13. Altered Extensions So far, we’ve covered extensions of the triad and the 7th chord, but we’ve only looked at the natural extensions – the major 9th, perfect 11th and major 13th. When we see chord symbols…
This lesson covers the construction of the Natural Minor, Harmonic Minor and Melodic Minor scales and how they relate to Minor keys. The concept of relative major and minor keys is also discussed with reference to Key Signatures. The Natural Minor Scale The natural minor scale is made up of the root note, major 2nd, minor 3rd, perfect 4th,…
You might have heard the terms Tonic or Dominant used in describing certain scale degrees but did you know there are more of them? This lesson discusses the names of scales degree and why they are useful to know in a practical sense. Recap In previous lessons, we looked at the difference between intervals and…