In the last newsletter, I showed you how you can play a I - IV - V song in five different keys. Today I’d like to introduce you to the four other members of a chord family. At the end of this lesson, you should be ready to transpose a simple song into a different key.

But first, a song I wrote to the tune of “Theme From The Brady Bunch”:

Here’s a story
of a pop ditty
whose chorus used three bright and cheerful chords.
They were named I, IV, and V,
and in their future,
they saw some Grammy awards.

Still, the chorus
woulda bored us
But for the minor ii - iii - vi chords in the verse
They were darker-sounding chords,
and with this contrast,
the song was better, not worse.

Now there was one more chord added to this ditty
By an overpaid producer named Henri.
It was called the vii chord and sounded jazzy,
And it doomed the ditty to obscurity.

Obscurity!

Obscurity!

That’s the way to guarantee obscurity!*

*Unless your name is Paul Simon

As you’ve gathered, there are seven total chords in a given chord family. For run-of-the-mill popular songs (in a major key using non-jazzy chords), these are the seven chords:

I - ii - iii - IV - V - vi - vii°

And here’s how to decode the roman numerals:
Capitalized = Major
Lower-case = Minor
Lower-case with a ° = Diminished

Your life will be easier if you take a moment to memorize this pattern. I often think of music in terms of colors, so try this: The I, IV, and V chords are major. They’re the blond girls in the chord family—like Marcia, Jan, and Cindy in the Brady Bunch. The other chords are minor, represented by the dark-haired boys. I know, I know, hair color has no bearing on personality. Sheesh, I’m just trying to teach a little music theory here….

This leaves the vii° chord, the oddball of the family. Remember Cousin Oliver, the little kid who came in for the last season of The Brady Bunch to boost ratings? He was cute but didn’t quite fit. Likewise, the diminished chord, with its dissonant, jazzy sound, doesn’t fit in most straightforward rock and folk songs (not to diminish diminished chords—they’re common in blues and jazz, and many songwriters use them beautifully).

So to review, say this aloud a few times: “One, major. Two and three, minor. Four and five, major. Six, minor. Seven, Oliver. I mean, diminished.”

Now that you’ve memorized that pattern, figure out the seven chords in the key of C chord family. To do this, just run up the C major scale (C, D, E, F, G, A, B), turning each note into a chord. You should get:

C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim.

Now let’s try the key of G. This is little tricky, because once you deviate from the key of C, you need to know what “sharps” or “flats” are in your scale. For instance, in the key of G, you have an F#, not an F. Knowing this, can you figure out the chord family for the key of G?

G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em, F#dim.

There’s a trick to memorizing the sharps and flats in all keys, and also an amazing little diagram called the Circle of Fifths that does it for you, but both of these are beyond the scope of this newsletter, so here’s a chart of the major scales in all keys (as a .pdf if you want to print, and here if you don’t). Read left to right.

Ready to try a practice activity?

Print out one of the following songs from my website. They’re all in the key of G. Next to each chord, write the roman numeral identifying the role that chord plays in the chord family. For example, you’re going to write “IV” next to all the C chords. Then choose a new key from the five most common guitar keys (C,A,G,E, or D), and transpose the song (change its key). Use that major scale chart to help you. For instance, if you wanted to change to the key of A, you’d write “D” next to all C chords, because D is the IV chord in the key of A. Now play the song in its new key to confirm you did it right.

“Blowin’ in the Wind” by Bob Dylan
“Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison
“Island in the Sun” by Weezer
“Out on the Weekend” by Neil Young

Hungry for more? Try writing a song by picking a key (C and G are easiest) and using chords in that key’s family. It often sounds good to use primarily I, IV, and V chords, with an occasional minor chord thrown in to balance out the sweetness. There are no hard rules in songwriting of course—if you feel so compelled, start your masterpiece with a diminished chord. I’m sure Henri will be very impressed.

Some friends of mine at the Interbay P-Patch are organizing a fund-raiser. Check it out!

When: Saturday, September 1, 11am-7pm

Where: Magnuson Park Amphitheater

Why: To raise money for the P-Patch Trust, a non-profit organization that works to prevent hunger by promoting community gardening and by supporting programs that distribute food to needy.

Who: Five local blues and zydeco bands, including Brady’s band, The Mighty Titans of Tone

For more info: http://www.myspace.com/bluesforfoodfest

That’s right folks. Henceforth, the newsletter shall be called The Heartwood Beat. Thank you everyone who submitted ideas! I liked many of them very much, and many of the ones I didn’t like made me laugh anyway.
I chose “The Heartwood Beat” for its simplicity and multifaceted meanings: Heartbeat, musical beat, a reporter’s newsbeat, “Beats me what the heck Rob’s talking about”….

This newsletter is a follow-up to last week’s issue, when I tried to convince you all that learning about chord families was worth your time. Now that you’re all raring to go, let’s check out those I - IV - V chords in more detail.

But first, I need to ask all you jazz geniuses to take a deep breath and prepare yourselves for a few expedient simplifications and omissions.

In last week’s issue, I told you about the most common chord progression in popular music: I - IV - V (pronounced “One, four, five”). Today I’d like to teach you an easy way of figuring out I - IV - V chords for a given key. By the end of the lesson, you’ll be able to play “Twist and Shout” in five different keys without using a capo. C’mon and work it on out!

So let’s say you’re at a party and someone in the live band gets wind you play some guitar. The shove a Rickenbacker in your hand, and call out, “Twist and Shout in the key of C!”

Here’s what you do. First, you know that “Twist and Shout” is one of those I - IV - V songs because of my last newsletter. So you just need to find those chords for the key of C.

The I chord is easy–it’s the chord the key is named after: C. The IV chord and V chord can be found by reciting your musical ABC’s while counting on your fingers:

C = 1 < -- That’s your I chord
D = 2
E = 3
F = 4 <-- That’s your IV chord
G = 5 <-- That’s your V chord

So C - F - G are the I - IV - V chords for the key of C. Let’s say it turned out that C was too low for the singer at that party, and he wants to try the key of E now. Make sure to jump back to A after G.

E = 1 <-- That’s your I chord
F = 2
G = 3
A = 4 <-- That’s your IV chord
B = 5 <-- That’s your V chord

E - A - B. This simple technique works for the most common keys played on the guitar: The keys that spell the word CAGED. See if you can find the I - IV - V chords in each of those five keys. To see if you’re right, try playing the following strumming pattern. It should sound like Twist and Shout, no matter what key you’re playing in:

I       IV    V                   < -- That’s where you make the chord changes
D   D   D D   D   D D D D D D D   <-- D’s mean strum down
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +   <-- Those are the beats

Next week, I’ll show you how to find the other chords in a given chord family, which will open up whole new worlds of songwriting and key-changing bliss.

UPDATE: IGBlog is no longer. Bummer!

There’s an interview with me on my favorite guitar blog, IG Blog. We talk about how I got into playing and teaching guitar, some of my inspirations, favorite gear, etc.

As if there wasn’t enough information about me on the web already…

Make sure to check out some of the other articles on this site! If you like this blog, you’ll love Ignacio’s stuff. Excellent lessons, with audio clips galore. I’ve started doing the Exercise of Doom recommended on the site, and I think it’s going to become a staple in my practice routine. Thanks Ignacio!

And now, it’s time for a Heartwood Headscratcher(TM)!

What do these four recordings have in common:

“Wild Thing” by The Troggs
“Twist and Shout” by The Beatles
“La Bamba” by Los Lobos
“Always With Me, Always With You” by Joe Satriani

A) Each has been banned by radio stations for having obscene lyrics.
B) They’re the four songs most likely to inspire people who shouldn’t be drinking or dancing to do both.
C) Joe who?
D) Each features the most common chord progression in popular music: I - IV - V.

ANSWERS:
A) Incorrect! You’re thinking of “Louie Louie,” which was banned after the F.B.I. concluded that Jack Ely’s almost completely unintelligible singing was lewd. The song proved to be an auditory Rorschach test—the actual lyrics are tamer than a guide dog.
B) Incorrect! No one listens to Joe Satriani anymore except guitar geeks like me and you.
C) Ok, maybe it’s just me.
D) Correct! Which leads us to this week’s tip…

If you’ve been playing guitar a while, you’ve probably noticed that certain chords seem to go together. For instance, if you’re playing a song in the key of G, chances are you’re going to encounter C, D, and Em too. That’s because those chords belong in the chord family of the key of G.

And there are three chords within any family that really stick together: The I, IV, and V chords. Think of them as inseparable siblings. Just to get you started hearing these chord relationships, play an A, D, and E chord, one after the other. Now play G, C, and D. Now try D, G, and A. Hear a similarity? You just played a I - IV - V progression in three different keys.

Knowing your chord families is really helpful. “But Rob,” I hear you saying, “I had a hard enough time remembering names at my own family reunion in St. Louis last summer. Why should I press my luck with someone else’s family?”

I hear you. I frequently have to count back when someone asks my age. But because popular songs are often comprised just of chords in a single chord family, knowing this stuff makes it much easier to figure out songs by ear, compose your own music, and change songs to other keys. And it’s really not that hard to learn the basics.

One more parallel between chord families and real families: both are often enjoyed most in small doses, so I’ll wait ‘til next week to give you a good overview of how the whole system works.