A Book Of Five Strings - online tutorial

Strategies for mastering the art of old time banjo.

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Common Chord Progressions In Major Scales
Key
I
ii
iii
IV
V
vi
vii 0
I
C:
C
Dm
Em
F
G
Am
B dim
C
D:
D
Em
F#m
G
A
Bm
C#di m
D
E:
E
F#m
G#m
A
B
C#m
D#di m
E
F:
F
Gm
Am
Bb
C
Dm
E dim
F
G:
G
Am
Bm
C
D
Em
F#di m
G
A:
A
Bm
C#m
D
E
F#m
G#di m
A
The key isn't to memorize every scale. As I've said before memorizing won't help you much. The key is to develop an intuitive feeling for the way chord progression work regardless of the key. A good way to start working on that is to transpose a song you already know into different keys.
Transposing
People make transposing seem a lot tougher than it really is. All we have to do is move to a new scale.
Take "Cripple Creek" for example. Earlier in the book we played it in G using the chords G, C and D.
It just so happens that these are the I, IV and V chords in the major scale. To play the song in D all we have to do is pull the I, IV and V chords from another scale and swap things around.
We will go into transposing melodies a little later on in this book.
Minor Progressions
Minor chord progressions are charted out much like major progressions, but the order of major and minor chords change.
i ii0 III iv v VI VII i A B C D E F G A