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F - Major Scale |

F - Major |

G - Minor |

E - Diminished

Harmonizing Scales

This text will first explain the concept of harmonizing scales then build on that to explain what musical key is and also the Nashville number system.

This is part three of a three part tutorial on music theory for guitarists, here you can find part one and two, those two previous parts will cover pretty much everything needed to understand this third part.

The most common chord progressions can be derived by harmonizing the major scale. From harmonizing a scale you will get a list of chords that plays well togheter. Also if you know two adjacent chords in a song you can in most cases figure out the rest of the chords knowing how to harmonize a scale.

Harmonizing a scale simply mean that you create chords using the notes in the given scale. To harmonize the major scale, start with the 1st note and create a chord by adding the two following notes in the scale while skipping every second note. So you start with the 1st note and create a chord using the 1st, 3rd and 5th note in the given scale, for the next chord you'll take the 2nd, 4th and 6th note, and when at the 6th note in the scale you start over and get a chord with the 6th, 1st and 3rd note. Figure 1 and 2 shows an example of harmonizing the F major scale.

F - Major Scale

I - F

II - G

III - A

IV - Bb

V - C

VI - D

VII - E

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
E	1	♭2	2	♭3	3	4	♭5	5	♭6	6	♭7	7	1	♭2
B	5	♭6	6	♭7	7	1	♭2	2	♭3	3	4	♭5	5	♭6
G	♭3	3	4	♭5	5	♭6	6	♭7	7	1	♭2	2	♭3	3
D	♭7	7	1	♭2	2	♭3	3	4	♭5	5	♭6	6	♭7	7
A	4	♭5	5	♭6	6	♭7	7	1	♭2	2	♭3	3	4	♭5
E	1	♭2	2	♭3	3	4	♭5	5	♭6	6	♭7	7	1	♭2

By harmonizing the major scale something really interesting will be revealed, and that is that the given list of chords will contain different chord shapes with different qualities and in a specific order: Major, Minor, Minor, Major, Major Minor followed by Diminished chord.

If you have a song with the adjacent chords F and G major, the scale to harmonize will contain F and G, and since major chords the scale to harmonize will end with A and B, and that can only be the C major scale, C D E F G A B, so the rest of the chords in the song will most likely (most songs are in a major key) come from the set Cmaj, Dmin, Emin, Fmaj, Gmaj, Amin, Bdim.

F - Major

I - major

II - minor

III - minor

IV - major

V - major

VI - minor

VII - diminished

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
E	F	G♭	G	A♭	A	B♭	C♭	C	D♭	D	E♭	E	F	G♭
B	C	D♭	D	E♭	E	F	G♭	G	A♭	A	B♭	C♭	C	D♭
G	A♭	A	B♭	C♭	C	D♭	D	E♭	E	F	G♭	G	A♭	A
D	E♭	E	F	G♭	G	A♭	A	B♭	C♭	C	D♭	D	E♭	E
A	B♭	C♭	C	D♭	D	E♭	E	F	G♭	G	A♭	A	B♭	C♭
E	F	G♭	G	A♭	A	B♭	C♭	C	D♭	D	E♭	E	F	G♭

Checking the scale degrees in the chord shapes will reveal their quality. See the shapes below for Major, Minor and the Diminished chord shape.

To get 7th chords by harmonizing a scale, you just add a fourth note to every chord, the first chord will be 1,3,5 and 7, the second chord, 2,4,6 and 1, etc.

F - Major

I - major

	E	A	D	G	B	E
1	1	4	♭7	♭3	5	1
2	♭2	♭5	7	3	♭6	♭2
3	2	5	1	4	6	2

G - Minor

II - minor

	E	A	D	G	B	E
3	1	4	♭7	♭3	5	1
4	♭2	♭5	7	3	♭6	♭2
5	2	5	1	4	6	2

E - Diminished

VII - diminished

	E	A	D	G	B	E
11	7	3	6	2	♭5	7
12	1	4	♭7	♭3	5	1
13	♭2	♭5	7	3	♭6	♭2
14	2	5	1	4	6	2

Musical Key

If you harmonize the major or minor scale you will be given the set of chords that belongs to the that given key, if harmonizing the C-major scale you will get all chords in the key of C-major, if harmonizing the scale of E-minor you will be given all chords in the key of E-minor etc. You can in fact harmonize any mode of the major scale and end up with stacked thirds, but when talking about chords in a key, you most often talk about the key of major or minor.

The Nashville Number System

The Nashville number system is simply the order in which the chords came out when harmonizing a scale, 1, 2, 3 etc. That order of chords in a key are how ever often labeled using roman numerals used in harmonic analysis. The order is also referred to as the chords harmonic degree. In harmonic analysis lower case is used for minor chords, and and upper case for major chords.

Using numbers instead of chord names makes its possible to describe chord progressions independent of key, a few examples are: I-V-vi-IV, I-IV-V and ii-V-I. In the key of C major the chord progression ii-V-I, will be translated to Dmin-G-C, where C is the 1st chord, D minor the 2nd and G the 5th chord.

This text will first explain the concept of harmonizing scales then build on that to explain what musical key is and also the Nashville number system.

F - Major Scale

I - F

II - G

III - A

IV - Bb

V - C

VI - D

VII - E

	E	A	D	G	B	E
1	1	4	♭7	♭3	5	1
2	♭2	♭5	7	3	♭6	♭2
3	2	5	1	4	6	2
4	♭3	♭6	♭2	♭5	♭7	♭3
5	3	6	2	5	7	3
6	4	♭7	♭3	♭6	1	4
7	♭5	7	3	6	♭2	♭5
8	5	1	4	♭7	2	5
9	♭6	♭2	♭5	7	♭3	♭6
10	6	2	5	1	3	6
11	♭7	♭3	♭6	♭2	4	♭7
12	7	3	6	2	♭5	7
13	1	4	♭7	♭3	5	1
14	♭2	♭5	7	3	♭6	♭2

F - Major

I - major

II - minor

III - minor

IV - major

V - major

VI - minor

VII - diminished

	E	A	D	G	B	E
1	F	B♭	E♭	A♭	C	F
2	G♭	C♭	E	A	D♭	G♭
3	G	C	F	B♭	D	G
4	A♭	D♭	G♭	C♭	E♭	A♭
5	A	D	G	C	E	A
6	B♭	E♭	A♭	D♭	F	B♭
7	C♭	E	A	D	G♭	C♭
8	C	F	B♭	E♭	G	C
9	D♭	G♭	C♭	E	A♭	D♭
10	D	G	C	F	A	D
11	E♭	A♭	D♭	G♭	B♭	E♭
12	E	A	D	G	C♭	E
13	F	B♭	E♭	A♭	C	F
14	G♭	C♭	E	A	D♭	G♭

Checking the scale degrees in the chord shapes will reveal their quality. See the shapes below for Major, Minor and the Diminished chord shape.

To get 7th chords by harmonizing a scale, you just add a fourth note to every chord, the first chord will be 1,3,5 and 7, the second chord, 2,4,6 and 1, etc.

F - Major

I - major

	E	A	D	G	B	E
1	1	4	♭7	♭3	5	1
2	♭2	♭5	7	3	♭6	♭2
3	2	5	1	4	6	2

G - Minor

II - minor

	E	A	D	G	B	E
3	1	4	♭7	♭3	5	1
4	♭2	♭5	7	3	♭6	♭2
5	2	5	1	4	6	2

E - Diminished

VII - diminished

	E	A	D	G	B	E
11	7	3	6	2	♭5	7
12	1	4	♭7	♭3	5	1
13	♭2	♭5	7	3	♭6	♭2
14	2	5	1	4	6	2

Musical Key

The Nashville Number System

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