Major Scale Harmony Spelling

How many words can be spelled with the 26 letters of the English alphabet? A whole dictionary full. Now, let’s apply this "alphabet" concept and spell the chords and arpeggios of major scale harmony.

The letters of the C major scale are: C D E F G A B and 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 are the one octave scale degree tone numbers. How many harmonies can be spelled with just seven letters of the C major scale? The simple answer is 49.



Notice that there are seven three letters triads, and fourteen four letters tetrads. We may continue spelling harmonies with five, six and seven different letters and tones until we run out of letters and tone numbers with which to spell.

Remember, chords and arpeggios are spelled with the same letters and tones but are played differently. A chord is played "at the same time", while an arpeggio is played "one at a time". Slash and poly harmony symbols are needed because many chords and arpeggios have very complex names - sometimes even different names for the same spelling (enharmonic).

Numerals are used to "place" harmony within the scale. Serif numerals are major and san serif numerals are minor.

Don’t feel bad if you don’t know all of these harmonies. It’s just like English, we may not know all the words, but we know all the letters!

Have some spelling fun..I’ll be listening.