Developing

Your Musicianship II
Lesson 2 Study Guide




Diatonic Chords

The definition of Diatonic is in the key of. For example in the key of F Major, the
following notes are diatonic because they are part of the scale:

A note other than the notes in the F Major scale, for example an Ab, is considered not
diatonic to the key of F Major.

To identify whether a chord is diatonic to a certain key or not, you must identify
whether each of the notes that make up that chord are diatonic. Here are the diatonic
triads in the key of F Major:

E

Notice that all of the notes in each chord are diatonic to the key of F Major, which
means that all of the chords are also diatonic. The pattern of major, minor, and
diminished triads in a major scale is always the same:

I II- III- IV V VI- VII

When you add 7ths to each of the chords, you get the following:

Notice that all of the notes in each chord are diatonic to the key of F Major, which
means that all of the chords are also diatonic. The pattern of 7th chords in a major scale
is always the same:

IMaj7 II-7 III-7 IVMaj7 V7 VI-7 VII-7b5


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Popular Chord Progressions

There are four main popular chord progressions we learned this week:

I IV V I

IV III- II- I

- -






I VI- I

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IV V VI-

Minor 6th Intervals

A minor 6th interval is one half step smaller than a Major 6th and one half step larger
than a Perfect 5th. Below are a few examples of minor 6th intervals:

C to Ab G to Eb D to Bb F# to D B to Gb

Ab Eb F# Bb Gb

C G D B D

Minor 7th Intervals

A minor 7th interval is one half step smaller than a Major 7th and one half step larger
than a Major 6th. A minor 7th is also one whole step below an octave.

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Below are a few examples of minor 7th intervals:

D to C F# to E G to F Bb to Ab

F# Bb Ab

D C E G F





Dominant 7th Chords

Adding the flat 7th interval to a major triad will produce a Dominant 7th chord. The
pattern of major and minor 3rds in the Major 7th chord is as follows:

A Major 3rd between the root and the 3rd
A Minor 3rd between the 3rd and the 5th
A Minor 3rd between the 5th and the 7th

For example, when we add a Bb to a C Major triad, we get a C7. Note the intervals
between each chord tone:

Major 3rd Minor 3rd Minor 3rd

C7
Bb (b7)
G (5)
E (3)
C (1)
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Bb

C E G


Major Minor Minor
rd rd rd
3 3 3