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The Subtonic ChordOver the past lessons (contents here), we've been building the following chord scale... Now there's just one more chord to add. We'll have then laid the foundations we need to truly experiment with our own songwriting ideas. What you've learned so far is actually quite in-depth as far as music theory goes and, like I've said before, much of the most loved music out there exclusively uses chords from that scale above. The subtonic (vii) chordThis is the 7th (hence the numeral vii) chord in the scale and immediately precedes the tonic, from which the scale repeats again.The subtonic is often referred to as a "leading chord", because of its position in relation to the tonic and how it naturally leads on to the tonic (a resolution). There are two things that make the vii chord a leading chord... 1) it lies one semitone (half step) down from the tonic 2) it is naturally a diminished chord Let's look at that first point now on the fretboard. The first diagram shows us the root note positions of the chords in our scale with the tonic chord root note on the low E string...  Remember this relationship is movable and relative to the tonic chord's position (which also defines the major key of a progression). Now with the tonic chord root note on the A string...  So as you can see, the subtonic chord's root note lies just a half step (one fret) down from the tonic. This is exactly how the 7th note of the major scale is positioned in relation to the 1st note. Hopefully you'll remember from the first few parts that this chord scale we're building is based on the intervals of the major scale! The only difference is we're building chords at each interval as opposed to just using single notes. So what chord do we build on that vii root note? See point 2 above - a diminished chord. I cover diminished chords in the main chord section on the site, but let's look at some examples to get a flavour of how the diminished vii resolves to the major I tonic. The diminished vii linkDiminished chords feel very tense and unresolved so they're most commonly used as links between two more stable chords in a progression. When that diminished chord is in the vii position, we can build a very natural resolution. Starting in the key of C major...vi - vii - I - Click to hear >
Listen to how the diminished vii chord naturally resolves to the tonic "home" chord. It just sounds right. You could also use it as a link between the IV and I chords as a "step up" to the tonic... IV - vii - I - Click to hear >
You could also link from the V chord (in the above example that would be G major or G7). And remember, this can work anywhere on the fretboard, using barre and movable chord shapes like in the example below... ii - vii - I - Click to hear >
That was a good example of how the vii can replace the V tension chord (as ii V is a typical resolving sequence). Diminished 7th viiSo as you can see/hear, the vii diminished chord has a very specific and rather limited role, but we can enhance that chord, just as we've done with the other chords in the scale in past lessons.The diminished 7th makes the vii even more tense! It gives it a rather dark and unsettling feel. Think of it as the regular diminished chord's evil twin brother (or... something). vi - vii - I - Click to hear >
And don't forget the diminished 7th chord shape on the low E string (requires a barred index finger)... ii - vii - I - vi - Click to hear >
The more you experiment with different chord combinations, the more you'll train your ear to know when a particular sound is needed in your songs. For example, you'll be sat there writing a song and you'll hear that "diminished vii sound" in your head as one of your options. That's the stage you ideally need to be at, and where you will be if you keep at it. We'll revisit diminished chords another time as they can be used in ways other than what we've seen here.
And that's it! We've built our foundation scale. From just those 7 chords and the variations we learned in past lessons, thousands of songs, well known and not so well known, have been written over the past decades alone. But you may or may not know that so far we've only been creating major key progressions (progressions with a major I tonic), so we'll need to look at minor key progressions at some point. Don't worry, minor key progressions make use of exactly the same scale we've learned. We'll come to it later. The next part will be about wrapping up what we've learned over the past 11 lessons, preparing us for the next stage where we'll move outside this scale's boundaries.  < Guitar Songwriting Contents
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