Piano Video Lesson: What Are Primary Chords? Why You Need Them

This is LivingPianos.com, I'm Robert Estrin. Today is why you must know your primary chords.

What are primary chords? Well, we're going to break it down for you today and I'm going to show you something called diatonic chords first, because that's how you can discover what your primary chords are.

So, diatonic chords, simply put, are building chords on every note of the scale.

So chords, simply put, are triads, three notes arranged in thirds. We're going to start with the simplest type of chords that contain three notes arranged in thirds. What are thirds? It's every other note of a scale, very simply put. So if you're in C major, a C major scale, play every other note.

And you've got a C major chord. If you go up the scale, you'll play all your diatonic chords. This is your I chord, II chord, III chord, IV chord, V chord, VI chord, VII chord, back to your I chord.

Now this is essential to understand and it can help you immensely in digesting a score if you're reading it or learning it or just hearing music.

So I'm going to show you now what the primary, what I refer to as primary chords. And it's going to click. If you're kind of vaguely aware of this, now it's going to be an aha moment for you. So let's go through. We start with the I chord and you notice that you have four half steps on the bottom. One, two, three, four. That's called a major third. As we discussed before, now on the top you count one, two, three. That's a minor third. When you have a major third in the bottom and a minor third in the top, indeed that is a major triad.

I'm making a big deal out of this because this is really fundamental to music. I'm sure you've followed me so far. We're going to go up and discover where the major triads occur in diatonic chords. So far we've established the I chord indeed is major. That is the first primary chord. Where is the next one? Well, if you go to the II chord, now you've got one, two, three. That's a minor third. One, two, three, four. That's a major third. So that's a minor triad. So the II chord is not a primary chord. It's a secondary chord because it's not major. Going on, what about the III chord? I bet you can figure this out now that I showed you the secret. One, two, three. One, two, three, four. That of course is a minor triad again. III chord is a secondary triad. What about the IV chord? One, two, three, four. One, two, three. Aha, we've got a major triad again.

So we've got the I chord and the IV chord are both major chords. They're major triads, therefore they're primary chords. Are there any other primary chords? We're going to go to the next one, which is the V chord.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three. Another major chord. So to recap, we've got the I chord, the IV chord, and the V chord are your primary chords.

I chord, IV chord, V chord.

Let's see if there are any others.

The VI chord, one, two, three, minor third. One, two, three, four, major third. It's a minor triad, another secondary chord.

And we've got one more left. Are there any other primary chords? The VII chord, one, two, three, one, two, three. What the heck is going on here? That's not a major triad. That's not a minor triad. Two minor thirds is a diminished triad. It's the only place where a diminished triad occurs in a diatonic chord.

To recap, you've got your major triads, which are your primary chords, the I, IV, and V. You've got your secondary chords, which are II, III, VI, all minor, and your leading tone, the VII chord, which is diminished. Those are your secondary chords. Why is this so important? Because those basic I, IV, and V are so intrinsic to Western harmony, and there's a way that you can establish the key. For example, in I, this is a voiced of a I chord, C, E, G, doubling the C on the top. And a IV chord, you can see the IV chord on top, doubling the root on the bass.

I, VI, IV, that's C, E, G, with a G on the bottom, the VI inversion, and a V, VII.

Leave out the V, put the B up there.

And that's, by the way, a great way. It's a classic authentic cadence.

Great way to establish the key, going through all your keys this way, is a great way to just have comfort in all the major and minor keys.

That's a terrific way to have literally your primary chords at your fingertips. Makes reading music easier, understanding the harmonic underpinnings of your music, and learning music easier.

And so those are what your primary chords are. You should know them in all keys. It will really help you to have a real grasp of the harmonic underpinnings of your music. And from there, you can expand to your secondary chords and secondary dominance and all sorts of interesting chords, but cement in your primary chords. I hope this is valuable for you. Let me know in the comments here at livingpianos .com, your online piano resource, where we have thousands of articles and videos with comments from people like yourself who love the piano. I'm assuming.

Anyway, join me next time here at livingpianos.com and YouTube. Let's see you next time.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/what-are-primary-chords-why-you-need-them/

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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