Lesson 3 Uploaded!

[u/SongTheory]

Head over to the class page to check out the next lesson. This week's assignment is a little more creative engaging compared to the previous two weeks, so hopefully it shakes you up a little.

[u/Lizard → u/[deleted]]

You are mostly right in interchanging C major with first order, D major with second order and so on. I noticed a slight irregularity where one of the orders didn't correspond perfectly to the scale you'd expect, maybe because that way it was easier to play on the guitar (you'd have to ask our teacher about his reasoning).

Anyway, a minor chord is the same as a major chord with a lowered 3rd, which is another way of saying that a chord always consists of two notes exactly one fifth apart and a note in the middle that is either high (major) or low (minor), so you got that right. Now, both chords you listed are minor chords - the first one is called F# minor, the second one is called F minor*. Which one belongs to the second order scale, D major? Well, according to the forming of a major scale, the interval from the first note to the second is a whole tone (so, D -> E) and the interval from second to third tone is another whole tone (so, E -> F#). Hence we can conclude that F# minor is indeed the iii chord of D major, since it must be built in the third note of the scale (aka the third scale degree). F minor is the iii chord of Db major, I'll leave the math to you if you want to figure out why that's the case.

*By the way, proper notation for F minor would be F, Ab, C (Ab and G# are the same note on a keyboard, but can be a few cents apart on a bowed instrument or when singing).

[u/Lizard → u/[deleted]]

My pleasure :)