How to find the chords in a key (simple methods + graphics) - Guitar Gear Finder (2023)

Learning to figure out which chords are in key is a useful skill any musician can learn. Once you learn this skill, you will be able to use it all the time.

If someone says "let's improvise in the key of E", what chords could you play that would fit that key?

In this guide, we'll see how to discover major chords in any key using a few simple methods.

For more information on chords and scales, as well as some basic music theory, check out these guides:

• How to find the key of a song
• Simple Explained Ranges(a good starting point for learning music theory)
• Simple Explained Scales
• How to practice guitar chords
• How to practice guitar scales

Although this guide was written for guitarists, you can use it to find chords in a key for any other instrument.

Find chords in the key of C (Example 1)

Let's use the key of C as an example and discover all the chords that fit in this scale. The 'key of C' uses theC major scale(link to sizing resources).

To find out which chords are used in a scale, we need to know which notes are in that scale.

The notes of the C major scale are:C D E F G A B

If you want to find out which notes are in any major or minor scale,read this guide on scales explained simply.

Once you know which notes are in the scale, you can start figuring out which chords fit that scale.

As you can imagine, the C major chord fits the C major scale. So you can easily find out the first chord in any key by looking at the scale name. The C major scale uses the C major chord, the D major scale uses the D major chord, and so on.

So let's highlight the C major chord notes from the C major scale notes below:

The notes of the C major chord areCEG🇧🇷 Notice the pattern these notes follow on the scale. We highlight the first note, skip a note, highlight the next note, skip a note, highlight the next note.

It is important to remember this pattern. The first chord of a scale always follows this pattern, as you'll see later.

Now, what if we take the same pattern and start on the second note of the scale?

We're using the same pattern of skipping every second note, but this time we're starting on the second note of the scale, D. We're done with the notesDFA.

If you know the basic major and minor chords, you can recognize these notes (don't worry if you don't).

The notesDFAform the D minor chord.

This means that the second chord in the C major scale is D minor.

Let's repeat this starting on the third note of the scale:

The three notes this time areE G B.

You may recognize these notes as part of the E minor chord. So the third chord in the C major scale is E minor.

Have you seen the pattern?

For every note in the scale, there is a chord that starts on that note. The way to find out which chords are in a key is to look at each note in the key and use a pattern to figure out each chord.

The first note, C, gives us the C major chord. The second note, D, gives us the D minor chord. There are seven notes in the major scale, so if we continue with this process, we'll have seven chords.

Here are the scale's seven highlighted chords (the dark green circles show the root of each chord):

By following the same pattern on each note of the scale, we can easily discover the seven major chords that fit the key.

For example, the fourth chord in the key of C uses the notes: F A C, which gives us the F Major chord.

Here are all the chords highlighted above:

1. TO BEG:make mayor
2. DFA:D minor
3. EG B:E minor
4. FAC:he is older
5. GBD:sun major
6. LIKE:a minor
7. B D F:b diminished(minor triad over a minor triad)

Now we know that the chords in the key of C are:C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim.

What we just did is calledharmonizing the scale.It's a fancy name for figuring out which chords fit in a scale.

Don't worry if this still doesn't make 100% sense, once you go through the rest of the examples below it will become clearer.

Find chords in the key of G (Example 2)

Let's move on to another scale to practice with. The key of G uses thesun major scale(link to sizing resources)

The G major scale uses the notes:G A B C D E F #

We can use the same pattern shown in the previous example to find out which chords fit the key of G.

Try to figure out all the chords in that key on your own before continuing.

Here is the G major scale with all the chord notes highlighted:

Here is a breakdown of each chord in the scale:

1. G major: G D
2. A minor: A C E
3. si menor: si re fa#
4. from the mayor: from mi sol
5. D major: D F# A
6. And minor: GBS
7. F# diminuto: F# A C

Going through each note, we now know that the chords in the key of G are: G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em, F#dim.

If you compare chords in the key of C and chords in the key of G, you can see a pattern in the order and type of chords.

These are the C major scale chords:C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim

These are the G major scale chords:G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em, F#dim

Carefully observe the chord type order (for example: major, minor, diminished).

Quick method to discover chords in a key

Don't worry if the theory seems overwhelming at first. Once you get used to the pattern used in the previous two examples, you'll get the hang of it.

Here's a different way to see what kind of chords are used in a key.

If you compared the chords of the C major scale and the G major scale, you might have noticed that the order of the chords remains the same.

The order of chords in a Major scale when harmonizing the scale are:greater, lesser, lesser, greater, greater, lesser, diminished

Let's compare the results of the two scales we developed earlier:

If you memorize this order, you won't have to worry about trying to figure out whether a chord should be major or minor.

The first chord in a major scale is major, the second chord is minor, the third is minor, the fourth is major, the fifth is major, the sixth is minor, the seventh is diminished.

This means you can easily figure out the chords in any scale by applying that chord order to the notes in the scale.

Let's try this on the F major scale that uses notes:F G A Bb C D E

If we follow the previous chord order, we get: F major, G minor, A minor, Bb major, C major, D minor, E diminished.

Let's check if this is correct by harmonizing the F major scale:

It doesn't matter if you memorize the chord order or use the note pattern, you should always end up with the same chords.

Practice this method using the A major scale (link to scale resources). The A major scale uses the notes:ABCDEFG#

Try to find out for yourself which chords fit the key of A using the information above.

Harmonizing the minor scale

All the above information explains how to discover chords in a major scale. But we can use a similar method to find chords in a minor scale.

We can use the same note-jumping pattern to figure out which chords fit in a minor scale.

Let's see an example with the C minor scale, which uses the notes:C D Eb F G Ab Bb

Here is the C minor scale with all the chord notes highlighted:

If we look at the intervals between these chord notes, we get:

1. C Eb G:of the smallest
2. DF Ab:d diminished
3. Mib Sol Sib:E flat major
4. F Ab C:make it smaller
5. Sol Sib Re:G minor
6. Ab C Eb:mayor of ab
7. Bb D F:B flat major

Unsurprisingly, the chord order has changed because it's a different type of scale. But it's the same chord order forallminor scale.

The chord pattern for minor scales is:smaller, lessened, greater, lesser, lesser, greater, greater

So if we apply this pattern to the A minor scale (A B C D E F G), we end up with the chords: Am, Bdim, C, Dm, Em, F, G.

If we apply this same pattern to the E minor scale (E F# G A B C D), we end up with the chords: Em, F#dim, G, A, Bm, C, D.

Now you know how to discover chords in any key (major or minor). It might take some practice to get used to this, but after you've done it a few times, it should feel easy. You'll be able to use this knowledge to jump into any jam and start writing songs in any key.

chords in a key chart

Once you learn how to use the methods explained above, you will be able to easily discover the seven major chords of any key.

In the meantime, the chart below offers a quick way to find chords in any major scale:

If you want to find the chords used in any minor scale, you can find the relative minor scale by looking at the sixth note in any major scale. Look at the sixth column in the chart above to find any minor scales.

For example, the sixth note in the C major scale is A (C D E F GONEB). This means that the A minor scale and the C major scale use the same notes.And the same chords.

Finding chords in a key summary

To find the major chords used in a major scale, the order starting from the root note will be Major, Minor, Minor, Major, Major, Minor, Diminished.

To find the major chords used in a minor scale, the order starting from the root note will be minor, diminished, major, minor, minor, major, major.

Alternatively, you can look at the notes used in the scale and use the note skip pattern to figure out the notes used in each chord.

Key points to remember:

• You can easily discover chords in any key by harmonizing the scale.
• There are seven chords for each key, one for each note in the scale.
• Harmonized chords in a Major scale always follow this pattern: Major, Minor, Minor, Major, Major, Minor, Diminished
• Harmonized chords in the minor scale always follow this pattern: minor, diminished, major, minor, minor, major, major

The more you learn about music theory, the easier it will be to understand how chords and scales relate to each other. Even if you don't know anything about music theory, you can use the methods covered in this guide to figure out all the chords in any key.

Check out these scaling resourcesfor useful charts and diagrams for common scales you can use.

For more information on chords and scales, as well as some basic music theory, check out these guides:

• Simple Explained Ranges(a good starting point for learning music theory)
• Simple Explained Scales
• How to practice guitar chords
• How to practice guitar scales
• How to find the key of a song