In this lesson we're going to be taking a look at the diatonic chords for minor. So what are the diatonic chords? The diatonic chords are seven chords that are created using the notes in the minor scale. Let's take a look at what they are. Okay the diatonic chords for minor I'm going to use a minor as an example as I've been using for other lessons. The one chord is an A minor chord.

So in the key of A minor, the one chord is an A minor chord. And how where that comes from is it's basically it's a it's a cord that's built off the root node A and if you go every other node in the scale, go a z if I play a C E, and I create a minor triad, so the one chord is minor. And if I start from the second note in the scale, go every other note in the scale. What do we ended up with we end up with, we end up with a diminished triad, so the two chord is going to be diminished. For a little more advanced, the full minor seventh chord would be a minor seven flat five chord or a half diminished. But for in terms of like songwriting purpose in general purposes, I like to think of just as the two chords diminished.

Even though technically the full, the full, proper seventh chord would be a minor seven, flat five. All right, if we start on C, which is the flat third, you know your scale goes one, two, flat three, if we go every other letter in the scale, C eg we end up with a major chord. So so far, we have the one chord is a minor and the two chord is B diminished. The flat three chord is major. The four chord if we go every other node starting on D, the fourth node, we go every other note in the scale. We end up with a D minor triad.

So the four chord is minor. And then if we do the same for the five chord, we end up with, we end up with a minor chord. So let's recap. We have one minor, the two chord is diminished. The flat three chord is major, four chords minor. The five chord is minor, the flat six chord, right, here's the flat six, note one, two, flat 345, flat six.

If we go every other note in the scale turns out to be a major chord. So F major is going to be a flat six chord, but also play it down here. And then if we go every other note, starting with the flat seven, we're going to end up turns out to be turns out to be a major triad. So the the flat seven chord is major as well. So let's recap. We have one minor too.

Diminished flat three major, then we have four minor, five minor, flat six major, and then flat seven major. Those are the seven diatonic chords in the key of A minor. So you might be saying yourself, whoa, I don't I don't understand what you're talking about. I don't understand like what a key is, or what's what's the point of all this, I don't even know how to play those chords that you're talking about. So what I am going to do is attached to the to this lecture, or lesson, I'm going to have a chart here, it's going to show you all it's going to show you all 12 keys and all the chords that go in all 12 keys. So you're going to find this very, very helpful.

You want to make sure you print that out or at least download so that you can look and say an F minor, the the three chord is flat, a flat, and that's going to be a big help. And in terms of how do you play these chords, I'm also going to attach to different barre chord charts, one that's based off the sixth string and then one that's based off the fifth string. That way, if you're looking at the chart and you're like, I don't know where to play, you know, say an a diminished or how to finger it, you can look it up and you can see a couple different couple different ways to play it on my barre chord charts. So the big benefit to understanding what diatonic chords are in any given key is it allows you to if you want to create your own music, like I can very easily create a chord progression going, just knowing that what my my chords are available, and go.

I chose to 114 flat 651. So it allows me to very quickly create a chord progression, then I can record it, and then I can solo over it and practice my scales And to me, that's a huge benefit to understanding your diatonic chords. Another big benefit to understanding diatonic chords is when you get to play a song. Let's say you know song, it's in a minor, when you learn that chord progression for the song, you're going to see that 99% of the time they're using chords in the key. So to me, it really helps me understand. It helps me remember the song quicker and it just gives me a better understanding of how that artists you know, put those chords together and why they use those specific chords for that song.

Does it mean they're always going to use the diatonic chords, now, you're going to find the songs that are kind of, you know, probably 95% of the time they all songs are going to use mostly diatonic chords. But there's different things like secondary dominance, like if I want to go from this a minor to G. I could put in a nice seven before the G. You know, so there's different songwriting techniques where they use different types of chords that aren't diatonic chords. But in general, most of the time when you play songs, they're going to use diatonic chords. It helps you learn songs faster, because then you can just Start soon as you figure out what key The song is them, you already know the set of chords they're probably going to be using. And it just helps you learn the songs faster. It gives a little deeper understanding of the key that you're in the scale you could be using the chords that are probably going to be used.

I find it very helpful in the long run might seem pretty complicated now, but the longer you play music, you'll find that it's very important to understand your diatonic chords.