Diatonic Chord Progressions

I'll start by explaining why this is worthwhile to know.

Lots of folks know chords - those vertical groups of notes with names and symbols. However, did you ever think that you could simply memorize what "holds these chords together" and makes them make sense. how much faster do you think you would be at reading music and memorizing music if you did this?

"Dia" means through in this case.

And "tonic" means all the tones of music A - G (Note: it doesn't matter a whit if you have a # or a b attached to the tone, it is still the tone.)

"Diatonic chords" are merely "scale chords" cause they use only the notes of the scales they are part of.

I would guess that "Diatonic Chords" sounds more scholarly than "scale chords" so it is the term that is used.

Now letters A - G comprise seven notes so all Diatonic Scales have seven notes. This would be the Major Scales and the three forms of the minor scale, but not the Pentatonic scales or Chromatic scales
(which have 5 and 12 notes, respectively.) Major really does mean Major in this example and minor scales are lesser than Majors.

You may already know that we use the Major Scale to make chords. (Sure, you CAN use minor scales but why?) Thus it behooves you (yes, you) to know both Major Scales and how to make chords from them.

Why do the chords made only from notes of Major Scales sound so good. (and they do sound "good" as evidenced by the Diatonic tunes "Unchained Melody" and Pacabel's famous "Canon in D.") It's simple. These tunes use only chords that are made up of Major Scale notes.

In short, both chords and melodies to these tunes are combinations of the very same 7 notes.

This produces some interesting effects, one of which is any single chords which is NOT diatonic, is the one chord that many folks will recall, as it is a change from the "diatonicity" (a word that I, personally, made up!) Much rock uses this to very good effect.

Some of these chords are Major, some are minors, and one is a diminished chord! We often consider
that the dominant seventh chord (which contains that diminished chord in it's last three notes) for that key to be superior to the diminished chord for that key.

We use something that doesn't exist in the world to note the "majorness" or minorness" (often termed in music theory as chord "quality") namely lower case Roman Numerals (as well as normal ones.) We term the Major Chords in each key the I, the IV,  and the V. The minor chords are the ii, the iii, and the vi. We also say that the vii has a little circle after it or the word "dim."  The Majors are often called the Primary chords. I usually include the dominant seventh in the key (which is called the V7 cause it is based on the V) in these chords. Depending on what theory book you read, the minors and that lone diminished chord are called the Secondary Chords.

Here are some Diatonic progressions for you to "mess with" (if I repeat a number then this means you must repeat that chord for an additional measure.)

ii V7 I I

I I I I IV IV I I V IV I V7

vi IV V I

Recognize them? I sure do hope so. The thing that makes them work is the fact they use only notes of the scale.