We talked about diatonic chords and their usefulness as safe chords. Here are a few more things about diatonic chords: how we can use relative minor and major relationships to easily remember the safe chords of a song, and a bit about deriving minor scales from the major scale. Relative minors to help The diatonic Read the full article…

Knowing the fifth note of each note or at least some of them is useful when forming chords or chord progression. A bit of basics in this post. When C is the root G is the fifth. How? 1. We can either count from the root through minor 2nd major 2nd etc till we reach Read the full article…

You can play the chords for a large number of popular ragas or songs if you know the 'diatonic chords' of the major scale. Major scale and harmonic minor scale forms the basis of most popular songs. Knowing the 'safe chords' of the major scale lets you play chords for ragas and songs in the Read the full article…

We will use the second mode of melodic minor as an example exercise in finding chords from the scale notes for two reasons: The second mode of the melodic minor has a flat nine interval in it, which is present in many of the popular indian sounding ragas: Mayamalavagowla, Kamavardhani, Chakravakam etc. The melodic minor Read the full article…

Triads from each note of the major scale Take the major scale:  C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C Build a triad starting from each note of the major scale taking two more notes from the scale, skipping a note in between. These chords are called diatonic Read the full article…

We can talk about chords in terms of Indian notation, especially when talking about chords for ragas. Talk about major seventh note as the big Ni or the N3, and the major seventh chord spelling as S, big Ga, Pa and N3. Using big Ga and N3 together, as above, is a mixture of notation, Read the full article…

Theory comes after music. We try to find out why something works in music and note it down as theory. This particular three chords have been used a lot because it worked to give some very appealing effects.

Finding the notes The notes are : E (5th string) A# (4th string) D (3rd string) G (2nd string) Let us take E as the root. Then the other notes form the following intervals. Root : E A# : #4 or b5   (Hint : B is the fifth of E. Lowering by one note to Read the full article…

Even when we feel that a song is in minor, how do we make sure? A strong evidence is needed. We may find some to prove the case. The one note that will clear away the doubts.

Click on the play button (top left) to listen to the phrase. Raaga Hamsadhwani Phrase Example |G , , , G , , R | SRG , , , , R| NRNR G , , R| NRNP Each alphabet and comma is of a sixteenth note duration. Let us find out the chords for D Read the full article…