Hi! Tyson Farmer here with a quick little trick to memorize all the diatonic (standard) chords in a key. This trick is great for songwriters, and can even get you through a music theory test without memorizing pages of scales, chords, and keys.
The traditional way to memorize chord names in a key is by memorizing them in the order of the chords, for example:
Key of G:
G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em, F#dim, (G)
I've never been a big fan of this method, since it's clunky and difficult and doesn't take the way that chords work together into account. So let's start by conveniently setting aside that diminished chord on the 7th scale degree (the F#dim), since it's not as common as the others in everyday music.
That leaves us with 6 chords - 3 majors and 3 minors:
G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em
Now let's group all the majors and minors together with each other: G C D, and Am Bm Em.
The 1/4/5 chord progression is the most common chord progression in music across almost every genre. So now let's group the majors and the minors together in order of their respective 145's. This way we can memorize the chords in the way they are more commonly grouped together in music. This gives us:
G C D for the majors, and
1 4 5
Em Am Bm for the minors.
1 4 5
So- if you memorize ANYTHING here, memorize all your 145s in all your 12 MAJOR keys only, since you only have to tack the "m" onto any major chords to make them minor, for example ADE=AmDmEm). Also, notice that the order above (Em Am Bm) is the only way the minors can work in this configuration and letter order in this key (try counting them up with your fingers - E=1, F=2, G=3, A=4, B=5). Also, notice the 1 chord for the minor 145s (Em) is one WHOLE STEP above the 5 of the major 145s (D) - more on this next. Now the chords are grouped together in a way that you can not just more easily memorize, but also figure out given just ONE root chord! Let's try this for the next example in the key of C:
*What's our key? C.
*What's the 145 for C? C F G.
*Take that 5 (the G) and go a whole step above it: A.
*What's the 145 for A? A D E.
*Now tack "m"s onto those chords to make them minor: Am Dm Em
*Now group them all together: G C D, Am Dm Em
And now you have your chords in the key of C! If you need to add the 7th scale degree, just go a half step below the 1 and add the word "diminished": B diminished (or "Bdim", or even the diminished symbol, which looks like a degrees symbol: B°)
There you go! A quick little hack to figure out all the chords in any given key! Keep in mind if you memorize all your 145s, some have sharps or flats in certain places, but I feel this is a much better, faster, and more practical way to memorize and figure out chords in a key, and behaves more like everyday music.
Do you have any quick hacks like this? Please share them! Music theory is all about shortcuts and practical tricks since there is so much to memorize... ;-)
Tyson Farmer
www.lessonface.com/TysonFarmer
Tyson,
That's a really cool trick! I've used a similar method of memorizing my chords by memorizing the diatonic triads in the key of C and then potentially tonicizing the minor chords to make their major counterparts, or "minor-izing" (for lack of a better term than flating the 3rd) of a major chord. The only hang up was knowing the sharps and flats of every key, but that's as easy as knowing the order of sharps and flats tricks (one sharp before the key and one flat past it).
I'll definitely keep your trick in mind if it's free lol. Maybe it'll help other students, and instructors perhaps, to better understand it.
Musically,
Robert Parrish
Thanks Robert!
Wait - is there a way to copyright a theory trick like this? Hmmm...
JK, of course it's free - use as needed. I love sharing these tricks and hacks with fellow musicians - in the spirit of how music major undergrads used to give me helpful tricks to quickly get through theory exams when I was a freshman, like that "sharp before and flat after" trick you mentioned. :-) Cheers!
Tyson