The Steel Guitar Forum

As somebody who proudly eschewed music theory for most of my life I finally "saw the light"

It took me forever to realize that 1 1V V and 11m etc etc was based on 8 (octo) positions or duh and Octave. Having played guitar I was going on an octave being 12 notes. I didn't ask, nobody told me ha ha. So why do we use a system based on 8 when it's really 12? What i'm trying to understand is what is the relationship between a minor chord and a major chord. I mean absolutely not relationary. Is there a fixed rule? If a scale starts in D there are lots of different scales you can use. Specifically I'm trying to build chords and trying to see if there is a fixed universal rule.

Steve.
I can answer this for you. The whole Nashville number system is is based on stacked thirds. Also called the harmonized major scale.
Imagine one octave a C major scale on a musical staff. C,D,E,F,G,A,B,(C). Now take every other note and stack, three notes at a time. For Example. The first chord would be C, E, G,.
Now go to the second note in the C scale and stack every other note. D, F, A. Now do the same thing with the next note in the C scale. It would be E, G, B. Continue doing this. So far we have the I chord, then the II min chord and the III min. chord.
The only (odd) chord is the VII which is a Diminished
chord, which you'll learn to love. Hope this helps. Ron Pruter

Pretty amazing. I just need to digest this so I understand why it works. So it goes 1 11m 111m 1V V V1m V11weird then?

Funnily enough yesterday I just got this V11 diminished chord by pressing down AB pedals and accidentally pressing down my pedal 4 which is half of a V chord. it sounded interesting and i named it weird chord. Thanks for setting me straight on this!

A Major chord is made up of the 1st, 3rd and 5th steps of the scale in any given key. A C major chord is C, E and G.
E is the 3rd scale step. If you lower the E to E flat (Eb)
the chord becomes a C minor chord. If you lower the 3rd and the 5th each a half step, you have a diminished chord.
Hope this helps...

We talk about 8 notes in an 12 half tone octave because 7 are all you need in any standard major or minor scale.
If you look at the history of music and scales, 12 tones were a later development

Up until about 1600, musicians referred to all the sharps and flats (except B-flat) as "false notes" (musica ficta). They used some of them (especially e-flat and F-sharp), but did not consider them part of the theoretical system (musica recta).

In other words: what Lane said with some fancy-schmancy Latin thrown in.

You guys went a little deeper than what I thought of the number system.
My thought for years was, the basic numbers in any given key was like the major notes in any key, and the root, or key, as l ll lll lV V Vl Vll, then back to one. Then the dim, m, aug, was added to the key. It has been 60 years since I worked with music theory, and arranging. First heard of the number system when I went into the little RCA recording studio, and in minutes thought it was great.

The specific question was "why 8 when there are 12 notes in the octave?"
Answering that question adequately involves explaining the missing 4 tones.
If you have all eleven notes, you can play every (western) mode in every (western) key, by choosing the right 4 to ignore.

Lane Gray wrote:
If you have all eleven notes, you can play every (western) mode in every (western) key, by choosing the right 4 to ignore.

There are 12 notes.

Indeed there are. I counted them as 11, but I must have missed one. I was positive that the 12th was the octave.
Oops

Bob Hoffnar wrote: There are 12 notes.

Picky, picky...

Should the western scale written be Arabic numbers or Roman numerals ?? ..

You almost lost me at "Musica Rectal"
...but then I remembered where I thought some peoples' music came from, and it all made sense...

At the risk of seeming self-serving, I wrote a book on this very subject. http://www.melbay.com/Products/98207/mu ... world.aspx

I also wrote a steel guitar supplement which explains how the concepts in the book relate to what the pedals do, and contains examples from the book tabbed out. I will send this for free to anybody who sends mean E-mail and tells me they bought the book.

If you really want to learn this stuff you should not just buy my book, but study it. Or, as an alternative, take a class at your local community college.

It is possible make comparisons/connections like this
C D E F G A B C = I IIm IIIm IV V VIm VIIdim I

It doesnt explain much and leaves a lot to just memorizing everything.

What you need to realize is that the
C D E F G A B C is actually
C - D - E F - G - A - B C when positioned on a fretboard or when played along one string, and that is when you gonna get the moment

or something like that
The observant eye would recognize the pattern as a pentatonic scale where the first is the b7 of a minor petatonic scale
The other smileys outlines the Major scale

Cmaj7 + Dm7 + Eb minor pentatonic = chromatic scale
All notes accounted for within one octave from C to c and no note duplicated

Happy mind bending
B.Erlandsen

Bo Borland wrote:Should the western scale written be Arabic numbers or Roman numerals ?? ..

In Istanbul, you might have a choice, but in Jersey either side of the Atlantic, I think scale degrees would be written in Arabic
and chords in Roman numerals but not mixed:

1 11m 111m 1V V V1m V11weird

(oops, just noticed the smiley).

Speaking of which, they'd make great fret markers for steel:

Imagine the tablature.
Mind bent.

There are two patterns that you need to memorize: the major scale pattern and the chord pattern. They are connected by an underlying logic, but for now just memorize the patterns.
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A "whole step" (W) is two frets. A "half step" (H) is one fret. The major scale walks up from the key note like this: W W H W W W H. That's the scale pattern.

Starting at C, the scale is C D E F G A B C

Starting at E, the scale is E F# G# A B C# D# E.

whole whole half whole whole whole half. 2 2 1 2 2 2 1. (Those numbers add up to 12, to address your original question.)
<hr>
The chord scale has 3 majors, 3 minors, and a diminished. People often use roman numerals to describe these chords, with lower case for the minors. The chord pattern is:

I ii iii IV V vi vii^o (or 1 2m 3m 4 5 6m 7dim)

The letter names of the chord pattern follow the scale pattern (W W H W W W H) of the key.

In C, this is C Dm Em F G Am B^o

In E, this is E F#m G#m A B C#m D#^o
<hr>
A lot of songs stay entirely within one scale and its associated chords (the "key"). A lot of songs step outside of key for a chord or two, then return. Some songs don't follow music theory logic at all. Most of those are written by guitar players.

b0b wrote:Some songs don't follow music theory logic at all. Most of those are written by guitar players.

I seem to end up in the studio with a lot of these...

b0b wrote:
In C, this is C Dm Em F G Am B^o

In E, this is E F#m G#m A B C#m D#^o

By the way, not to be too picky, but the last chord in the diatonic series would be a m7b5 rather than a full diminished. Thus, in key of C, it's B D F A. To be diminished the A would need to be changed to an Ab (which would be a note outside of the major scale).

I'm still looking for the "H" chord...

Scott Duckworth wrote:I'm still looking for the "H" chord...

Just be natural and you'll find it in Germany.

http://www.tonalsoft.com/enc/g/german-h.aspx

Jim Cohen wrote:By the way, not to be too picky, but the last chord in the diatonic series would be a m7b5 rather than a full diminished. Thus, in key of C, it's B D F A. To be diminished the A would need to be changed to an Ab (which would be a note outside of the major scale).

Not to be too picky, but b0b's chords are triads, so diminished is correct. The four-note chord B D F Ab is technically a diminished seventh, not "full diminished".

Brint Hannay wrote:

Jim Cohen wrote:By the way, not to be too picky, but the last chord in the diatonic series would be a m7b5 rather than a full diminished. Thus, in key of C, it's B D F A. To be diminished the A would need to be changed to an Ab (which would be a note outside of the major scale).

Not to be too picky, but b0b's chords are triads, so diminished is correct. The four-note chord B D F Ab is technically a diminished seventh, not "full diminished".

OK, I'll buy that (for triads) (sorry to distract, b0b)

We need to remember that the OP is asking fundamental questions about music theory. That's why I am only showing the 3-note chords.

The vii° chord isn't used very often by name, but it is important for another reason. When we play a V chord, we often add another note to make it a V7 (this is G7 in the key of C). The vii° contains the 3 notes of that chord that aren't the V note - it's the top part of the G7 (notes B D F).

When we're going up or down through the chord scale, we go through the vii° chord. We can even stop or start there if the current chord is V7. It's a very useful chord position, even if the song doesn't technically have a diminished chord in it.

On the E9th, you can play vii° by using the F lever 2 frets below the key fret. C is the 8th fret, so B° (or G7 without the G) is at the 6th fret with the F lever.

but in Jersey either side of the Atlantic,
huh?