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Borrowed Chords
In this tutorial we will look at the idea of borrowed chords, what they are, and where we borrow these chords from. This makes use of the parallel major and minor keys. What are Borrowed Chords? Borrowed chords are harmonies “borrowed” from the parallel key—meaning the major and minor keys that share the same tonic.…
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Modes
This tutorial will give a basic idea of the concept of modes. I have to confess that I am new to the idea of modes and had to do some research to write this tutorial. Despite having played the guitar for many years, I have only recently begun to appreciate the idea of modes whilst…
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Chord Extensions – Stacking More Thirds
This tutorial will look at what happens when we continue to stack thirds, following the principles of tertian harmony. We have already dealt with stacking up to four thirds and we have created many chord types, including but not limited to What comes next? If we continue to stack thirds we can create further chord…
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Chord Extensions – Stacking More Thirds
This tutorial will look at what happens when we continue to stack thirds, following the principles of tertian harmony. We have already dealt with stacking up to four thirds and we have created many chord types, including but not limited to What comes next? If we continue to stack thirds we can create further chord…
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Musical Intervals
In some of our previous tutorials we have discussed stacking thirds to create triads and chords, but what exactly is a third? What are intervals? We shall investigate what intervals are and how they are named. We shall also look at interval quality, melodic and harmonic intervals along with simple and compound intervals, and the…
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Suspended Chords
Introduction In this tutorial we shall look at the suspended fourth chords and how they are built. We will also explore what they can add to your music. There is also the suspended second chord that is discussed in the full tutorial. Some common modern-day examples are ‘Pinball Wizard’ by the Who that uses suspended…
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Minor Scale Diatonic Seventh Chords
This tutorial will detail the diatonic seventh chords for the natural minor scale. If you would like to know more about the diatonic seventh chords for the harmonic minor scale and the melodic minor scale please consider signing up for silver membership. Introduction Understanding diatonic seventh chords in minor keys is essential for harmony, composition,…
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Major Diatonic Seventh Chords
Introduction This tutorial will look at the diatonic seventh chords of the major scale. We have looked at the major scale, and we have looked at the construction of the different seventh chords. We will now look at he intersection of those two and see which seventh chords can be constructed diatonically on the major…
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Seventh Chord Inversions
Introduction This tutorial will look at what inversions are, how we create them for the seventh chords and how we know what inversion a particular chord voicing is. We will also look at two methods by which we can notate and identify seventh chord inversions. What is a seventh chord? In the tutorial on seventh…
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Seventh Chords and how to construct them
This tutorial will look at the plethora of seventh chords that are available and how they are constructed. We looked at the construction of triads employing stacked thirds and we will continue this method looking at seventh chords. Since we have four different triad qualities and four different types of seventh intervals there are quite…