In Part Two we learnt that the I, IV and V chords formed from a major scale are all major chords, and saw that these three chords could be used to accompany many songs. Let us now look at some of the other chords from the major scale.
The next most commonly used chord after I, IV and V is the VI chord. In the key of C major, the VI chord is A minor. This chord is made of the notes A, C and E. Notice that it has two notes, C and E, in common with the C major chord, which contains C, E and G. In fact, the scale called A natural minor, or A aeolian, contains exactly the same notes as C major, but starting on A instead of C. So, the A natural minor scale looks like this:
A B C D E F G A
Because A minor and C major have all these notes in common, A minor is called the relative minor of C major and, conversely, C major is the relative major of A minor. (Don't worry about the word 'natural' - the natural minor scale is just one form of minor scale. We will look at other forms of minor scale later.)
If we incorporate the A minor chord into our I - IV - V sequence, we can make sequences like this:
C Am F G C Am F G
In terms of scale degrees, this sequence would be: I vi IV V. This is used for the tune Heart and Soul which you might know as 'That irritating tune that children always play on pianos when they can't play anything else.' You can also find various permutations of the sequence in the Everly Brothers' 'All I have to do is dream', Elvis Presley's 'His Latest Flame' and 'Return to Sender', Dusty Springfield's 'I only wanna be with you', and the theme from the TV show Happy Days.
Relative minor chords are used in lots of other songs too. Remember that in part two, we mentioned Bob Dylan's 'Blowin' in the Wind' - well in the original version that he recorded, the chorus went like this:
F G C
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
F G C
The answer is blowin' in the wind
But when Peter, Paul and Mary did a cover version, they put the relative minor or VI chord in place of the I chord:
F G C Am
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
F G C
The answer is blowin' in the wind
(They also increased the harmonic tension in the verses by ending each line with the V chord, whereas Dylan had used the I chord.)
So, we have seen that we can build songs out of the I, IV, V and VI chords. What of the others? If we examine the piano keyboard, we can see that A is a minor third, or three semitones, below C. You will also notice that D, the second note in our C major scale, is three semitones below F, the fourth note; and E, the third note, is a minor third below G, the fifth note. Remember also that the diatonic chords built on D and E in the key of C major are D minor and E minor. So the II chord in C major, which is D minor, is the relative minor of the IV chord, and the III chord, which is E minor, is the relative minor of the V chord. We can make the I IV V sequence more interesting by adding some of these chords or substituting the minor chords in the place of their relative major.
If we change the I-VI-IV-V sequence by substituting the II chord for the IV, we get the chords for Blue Moon:
C Am Dm G
Blue Moon, You left me standing
C Am Dm G ...
alone
Using II and IV chords can greatly enhance our ability to construct interesting chord sequences. Imagine that Paul McCartney had only known the three chord trick of I, IV and V: if that had been the case, his lovely song 'Here, There and Everywhere' might have started like this:
C F G F C
Here, making each day of the year
Instead of like this:
C Dm Em F C
Here, making each day of the year
Leonard Cohen uses a similar I IIm IIIm IV sequence in Suzanne:
C
Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
Dm
You can hear the boats go by and you can spend the nights beside her
C
And you know that she's half crazy but that's why you want to be there
Em F
And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China
(Actually, Laughing Len wrote it in the key of E, but the same principle applies.)
We have now seen examples of how songwriters and composers use chords I - VI. We have not yet touched on chord VII, partly because it is not used as commonly as the other chords, and partly because it will be more interesting to look at it in the context of four note chords, which we will come to in Part Four.