When it comes to guitar chords, it all begins with basic ones that are called either major (use just the letter of the chord, eg E for E major) or minor (reduced to the letter plus m, eg Em for E ...

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Guitar lessons: You’d be forgiven for thinking that you’d use the minor scale to construct minor 7th chords, but that’s not quite how it works. All scales and chords are compared to the major scale, ...

A study suggests that minor and major seventh chords are the happiest sounds in music, but today’s songwriters are ditching them in favour of simple minor chords. But why does this matter? We all love ...

We’ve all played them, but how many of us can say we know how 7th chords actually work? There’s more to them than meets the eye… In this lesson, we’ll go through the difference between a dominant, ...

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. In the BBC radio comedy show I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, panellists are ...

Harmonic minor keys are used when writing chords. There is another version of the minor key known as the melodic minor. This is used when writing a melody. Each key signature has two possible keys.