{"id":4843,"date":"2013-01-09T17:37:56","date_gmt":"2013-01-09T22:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/wordpress\/?p=4843"},"modified":"2013-01-09T17:37:56","modified_gmt":"2013-01-09T22:37:56","slug":"a-simple-roman-numberal-theory-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/a-simple-roman-numberal-theory-lesson\/","title":{"rendered":"A Simple Roman Numeral Theory Lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Understanding some basic chord theory can only help your playing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here at Blues Guitar Unleashed, I don’t like to throw big amounts of chord theory your way. I will say that understanding theory can help your playing, but we’ve been proven time and time again by some of the biggest names in the blues that it isn’t essential to be able to play blues guitar. Nonetheless, I came across an article recently that simplifies how roman numerals work in chord theory. If you’re interested in learning a little more about basic chord theory and how to read and understand roman numerals in music, then read on.<\/p>\n

I found this short article at Blues Guitar Institute. I think the author did a pretty good job of explaining how roman numerals work in basic chord theory. Check out the full article at http:\/\/www.bluesguitarinstitute.com\/roman-numeral-analysis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

The Essentials of Roman Numeral Analysis<\/h2>\n

To say it simply, each chord in a key is assigned a Roman Numeral.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s breakdown roman numeral analysis in the key of A. \u00a0We\u2019ll start off by Harmonizing the A Major scale (A \u2013 B \u2013 C# \u2013 D \u2013 E \u2013 F# \u2013 G#) to determine the chords in the key:<\/p>\n

(A \u2013 Bmin \u2013 C#min \u2013 D \u2013 E \u2013 F#min \u2013 Gdim)<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a cheater\u2019s way around the steps of harmonizing any major scale to get the chords in a major key. \u00a0Just remember the pattern major \u2013 minor \u2013 minor \u2013 major \u2013 major \u2013 minor \u2013 diminished) and plug in the chords sequentially.<\/div>\n

Back to Roman Numerals\u2026<\/p>\n

Assigning a Roman Numeral to the chords in the key of A looks like this:<\/p>\n

(I \u2013 ii \u2013 iii \u2013 IV \u2013 V \u2013 vi \u2013 vii)<\/p>\n

Notice that some of the numerals are uppercase and some lower. \u00a0The upper case numerals represent major chords and the lower case are for, you guessed it, minor chords. \u00a0Well, except for the \u201cvii\u201d which is diminished and altogether different.<\/p>\n

If you get used to writing the roman numerals this way, you will reinforce the whole \u2018major \u2013 minor \u2013 minor \u2013 major \u2013 major \u2013 minor \u2013 diminished\u2019 pattern.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Feel free to dig in a little deeper to chord theory because it can only help your playing and your creative juices. The more you know about what’s happening harmonically in a song, the more ideas will come to mind when you’re playing rhythm or lead guitar. There’s more coming your way at Blues Guitar Unleashed, so stay tuned.<\/p>\n

Thanks,<\/p>\n

Griff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here at Blues Guitar Unleashed, I don’t like to throw big amounts of chord theory your way. I will say that understanding theory can help your playing, but we’ve been proven time and time again by some of the biggest names in the blues that it isn’t essential to be able to play blues guitar. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}