Seeking Primary Chords

For the guitarist (or any musician for that matter), Primary Chords (I, IV, V) are essential to the sound of most music. Being able to play them in any key will help when learning new music, composing new music and making you a better musician overall.

In a previous post entitled Finding Chords With the Circle of Fifths we looked at a way of finding any chords by using that big round graphic organizer. I wanted to break down that process and focus squarely on Primary Chords.

First we have to know the names of the lines and spaces on the staff:

Next we have to realize that the circle of fifths shows us what notes on the staff get changed by a b or a # in any given key.

Here is the key of Bb Major:

If I look at the names of the lines and spaces above, I can see that someone has put a flat on the B line and another on the space for E. This tells me that The key of Bb has 2 flats (Bb and Eb).
My Bb Major scale looks like this:
Bb, C, D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb
You'll notice that the only notes affected by the key signature are the ones mentioned earlier (Bb, Eb).

This means that my Primary Chords (I, IV, V) in Bb are: Bb, Eb, and F

Lets try another example...

What are the primary chords in the key of A Major?

If I look on the Circle of Fifths I can see that the Key of A Major looks like this:


There are #s on F, C, and (moving one space above F) G

My A Major Scale looks like this:
A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#, A

This means my primary chords (I, IV, V) in the Key of A Major are:
A, D, E

We will try some examples in class to make sure you have a complete understanding of this concept.