Most Songs Are a Combination of Diatonic Harmony And Chromatic Harmony

Good morning. Again, this is Duane and we’re doing a series called Good Stuff You Really Ought to Know About Music. We’re focusing on music theory, some things that every piano player and every musician needs to know. You don’t always use all these things, but it’s good to know what other musicians are doing as well. The more you know, the better of course.

Last time, we took up the N6 chord. Today, we’re going to take a look at diatonic harmony and chromatic harmony. That word, diatonic, and it puzzle some people, it’s actually made out of two parts; dia, D-I-A like diagonal, means across or through. Tonic of course means the tonal center of a key you’re playing in. For example, if you’re playing in a key of B flat so (plays piano) that’s a diatonic scale. It’s just the notes of the B flat scale.

If I play chords made out of just those scale notes, that’s a diatonic. Those are all diatonic chords. The contrast to that is chromatic harmony where you use some notes that aren’t in the scale. For example, if I’m in B flat and I want to play (plays piano) that note, that’s an augmented chord, but it’s also a chromatic harmony. It’s not diatonic anymore because it goes out of the key. Okay?

In diatonic harmony, we have eight keys, eight notes, but they’re always arranged like this, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step, no matter what key you’re in. If you’re in the key of B, it’s still whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. Okay?

The tonic chord of the key is C, guess what it is? Of course it’s C, isn’t it? That’s a home based court, it’s tonic. That would be a diatonic chord too but that happen to be major, that’s a D minor. If I build a chord on the third degree of scale, that’s E minor, all diatonic because we’re not using any notes that aren’t in the scale. That’s the fourth chord called a subdominant. That’s a dominant chord. That’s a submediant chord, and that’s a leading tone.

It’s just a simple concept. Diatonic means the you’re based in a given key and you’re only using the notes of that key. Okay? Now, most songs are made out of both. They’re basically diatonic, but they get into chromatic harmony once in a while too.

That’s really all you need to know about that, so that’s for being with me. If you enjoy these little tips, come on over to playpiano.com and sign up for tips. One more thing, diatonic harmony is used in western music and by that, I don’t mean country western music, I mean, Europe and the Americas.

If you get to the middle east and the far east, you get into more chromatic kinds of harmonies and they’re organizational structure of music is different than ours. Anyway, the west has diatonic harmony.

See you tomorrow with another tip like this. Bye-bye for now.

***For lots more good stuff on piano playing come on over to my website at https://www.playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips – “Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions!”

Here’s a great little book on chords and chord progressions on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Chords-Chord-Progressions-Exciting-ebook/dp/B0076OUGDE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404158669&sr=1-1&keywords=piano+chords+duane+shinn

Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XLLV2d_tUI

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