Turning Major Scales into Chords

When you're beginning to play an instrument, lots of people will tell you that you should learn some Major scales (do, re, mi...), which is helpful for learning your fretboard layout and improving your dexterity, but what people don't often tell you is that you can turn each of those notes from the Major scale into it's own chord. This is the foundation of Western music! The notes of a Major scale sound good to Western ears when played together (one note at a time), so when you turn each note into a chord, each chord sounds good together too! This is the really cool part! So, if you take a G Major scale- G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, then you can turn each of those notes into a chord: G Major, A minor, B minor, C Major, D Major, E minor, and then then F#dim is much rarer. If you know only a few songs on ukulele, you've probably come across G Major, C Major, and D Major being played together. Turning Major scale notes into chords explains why certain chords are frequently found together, and it can let you start figuring out tons of songs by ear since you'll know which chords are most likely found in a given song. You just have to be able to find the key that a song is written in (click the link below to find a video called "Key to Finding a Song's Key" if you're not sure how to do this, and then you have to know which notes make up the Major scale of that key. Once I figured this out, I was really able to start opening up my playing.

I just added a new video to my YouTube page that explains what I wrote above in more detail, and there's other videos you might find useful if you're a beginning uke player.

Hope this helps you further your playing!

Scott Sharp
Fretboard Toolbox