Lesson 11 · Part 4, A key, and where your hand goes

The chords of a key

A key is more than a scale, because it also includes the seven chords that the scale builds.

The chords in C major

  1. ICCmaj7
  2. iiDmDm7
  3. iiiEmEm7
  4. IVFFmaj7
  5. VGG7
  6. viAmAm7
  7. vii°B°Bm7♭5

The chords of C major are C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am and B°. With a seventh added they become Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7, Fmaj7, G7, Am7 and Bm7♭5.

If you stack every other note of C major, starting from each degree in turn, these are the chords you get. Nobody chose them: each one is built from the scale's own notes, arranged in thirds.

Every chord, where it lives

ICiiDmiiiEmIVFVGviAmvii°B°
Open1♭35131
Fret 22fr1♭352fr151♭3
Fret 33fr13513fr135
Fret 44fr1♭51♭3
Fret 55fr15135fr1♭3515fr135
Fret 77fr151♭37fr1♭3517fr1♭35
Fret 88fr1351
Fret 99fr151♭3
Fret 1010fr13510fr151310fr1351

The grid places seven chords across nine home frets on ukulele.

Read down a column to find one chord all over the neck. Each shape appears once, in the row for the fret it starts on. No single position puts every chord of this key within reach, so no rows are marked in the margin.

Take the major scale and build a chord on each of its seven notes, using only notes from the scale itself. You get three major chords, three minor chords and one diminished chord, in the same arrangement in every major key. In C they are C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am and B diminished.

This is why some chords sound as though they belong together and others do not. A song in C draws on those seven chords, and when it uses a chord from outside them, you hear it as a departure rather than as a wrong note.

The grid below shows where each of the seven chords can be played on the neck. Read down a column to see one chord across the whole instrument. Read across a row to see what a hand at that fret can reach.