Introduction to Spelling Chords
By: Dennis St. Germain
In this music lesson I want to show you how to spell chords and understand the component parts of a chord. You don’t have to even read music to learn to spell chords. All you need to know is the first seven letters of the alphabet. In music, chords are classified according to the interval between their tones. This lesson is applicable to all instruments.
Figure 1 is the circle of Fifths. Become familiar with this Circle it will be useful throughout your musical life. The numbers near the keynote names represent the number of sharps or flats within that key. If you divide the circle in half down the middle, the right side is the sharp side and the left side is for flats. There are 2 keys at 6 o’clock or F# or Gb and also Db or C# these keys are called enharmonic or they share the same number of flats and/or sharps for example F# has 6 sharps and Gb has 6 flats etc. They also sound the same but have a different name.
Figure 1 the circle of fifths
The order of flats and sharps
The next thing to remember is the order of sharps and flats. Remembering the order of flats first is easier because it spells the word BEAD then add GCF at the end like this: BEADGCF (I’ll leave it up to you to create some way of remembering this). Then the order of sharps is an EXACT mirror image of the order of flats. Like this: FCGDAEB
I’ll put the together to make some kind of chart.
BEADGCF (the order of flats)
FCGDAEB (the order of sharps)
Are you with me so far? Let’s take it a step further. For example purposes, I will use just the G Major scale for now. Suppose you want to know how many sharps are in the key of G MAJOR. The first thing I would do is go to the circle of fifths and find G, we can see that G is at 1 o’clock (or has one sharp since it’s on the sharp side of the circle). Now count on the order of sharps chart one letter (F) therefore, we have one sharp in the key of G Major and F is sharped in the key of G Major.
Let’s write out the letter names starting on G to the next highest G.
G A B C D E F G
Number the letter names
G A B C D E F# G
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Don’t forget to sharp the F to make the Key of G Major.
All chords are built from its parent major scale and measured from the ROOT.
Here is what you need to know about chord extensions.
Extensions are merely the same scale notes added to a 3 or 4 note chord to change its sound but not its type. If we take the G major scale for example and write it out for 2 octaves i.e.
G A B C D E F# G A B C D E F# G
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
We notice that the 9th is the the same as the 2nd step of a scale the 11th is the 4th step of a scale and the 13th is the 6th step of a scale added to the basic chords. You can also sharp (#) or flat (b) each of the extension notes to create even more sounds.
Armed with this knowledge, you can now build chords using the following formula:
Major 7 chords 1-3-5-7
Let’s take our G Major Scale and build a G Maj. 7 chord. Take the first, third, fifth and seventh notes and extract them from the scale. You now have the notes G B D F# which forms the G major 7th Chord.
minor 7 chords 1-b3-5-b7
For minor chords we now have to do some altering. Extract the 1 3 5 7 from the G Major scale then flat the 3rd and the 7th scale tones. You now have the notes G Bb D F which forms the G minor 7th Chord.
Diminished 7 chords 1-b3-b5-bb7 or 6 (bb7 means double flat the 7th or it is actually the 6th scale step)
For diminished chords, extract the 1 3 5 7 from the Major scale then flat the 3rd and the 5th and double flat the 7th (or you can use the 6th tone) so for G dim. 7 We have G Bb Db E
Dominant 7th chord 1-3-5-b7
The dominant 7th group is one of the most colorful of the chord groups and many musicians like to add extensions and altered scale tones to this group. Let’s extract the 1 3 5 7 tones from the G Major scale then flat the 7th step of the scale. We now have a G7 chord with the notes G B D F as the component parts of that chord.
Augmented chords 1-3-#5
Augmented chords also have a very unique sound to them having the raised 5th scale tone. Again let’s extract just the 1 3 5 scale tones (G B D) and sharp the 5th tone (D#) and there you have it a G aug. chord.
Recap
Always measure your chords from its parent major scale. If you want to find the spelling of Bb7 then write out a Bb scale in letter names, number each letter then follow the formula for Dominant 7th chords i.e. 1 – 3 -5 - b7 so for example we would have the spelling of Bb7th as Bb D F Ab.
Voicings are merely all the component parts of a chord arranged in some other order like, 3157 or 151351 or virtually any combination you can conjure up. You can double some of the notes you can add extra notes really the sky is the limit.
The steps to greater knowledge come with application. Take all the keys in circle of fifths and work them out in all keys. Use a piece of paper and write them out like we did. You will start to have a huge vocabulary of chord knowledge and eventually, you want to commit this to memory. Remember when you were trying to spell words well now you have the tools to spell chords.
