If you know your basic Major and minor chords, you might recognize these notes (don’t worry if you don’t).

We’re using the same pattern of skipping every second note, but this time we’re starting on the scale’s second note, D.

Now, what if we take that same pattern and start on the second note of the scale instead? The first chord in a scale always follows this pattern as you will see later. We highlight the first note, skip a note, highlight the next note, skip a note, highlight the next note. Take a look at the pattern those notes follow in the scale. The notes in the chord C Major are C E G. So let’s highlight the notes in the C Major chord from the notes in the C Major scale below: The C Major Scale uses the C Major chord, the D Major Scale uses the D Major chord and so on. So you can easily figure out the first chord in any key by looking at the scale name. Once you know what notes are in the scale, you can start figuring out what chords fit in that scale.Īs you might guess, the chord C Major fits in the C Major scale. If you want to be able to figure out what notes are in any Major or minor scale, read this guide on Scales Explained Simple. The notes in the C Major Scale are: C D E F G A B To figure out what chords are used in a scale, we need to know what notes are in that scale.

The ‘key of C’ uses the C Major Scale (link to scale resources). Let’s use the key of C as an example and figure out all of the chords that fit in that scale. 6.1 Related Guides and Lessons: Finding Chords in the Key of C (Example 1)

Tell me why easy chords