What are Diatonic Chords?
I am always struck by how many musicians are still completely confused or clueless about the importance of diatonic chords and how chords are related to each other within a key. Simply put, diatonic chords are chords that belong and come from the same scale. Most classically-trained pianists know how to play their major and minor scales very well. But some may not understand the significance of the chords that are associated with the scale. Let’s take a look at a C Major Scale: C-Major-Scale If we stack another two notes a third apart (skip a key each on the keyboard) above each scale note, we immediately form the seven (7) diatonic triads of the C Major scale or key. C-Major-Scale-Diatonic-Triads If we give a number to each chord of the scale (we usually use Roman numerals to represent chords, e.g. I, II, III, etc.; Arabic numerals to represent scale notes, e.g.
