That's a good, and useful question. Understanding the relationship between scales and chords is an important thing. I've got a couple of sticky's up on scales that would be worth reading.
The short answer is that each note in a scale will relate to a different kind of chord, because of the chords that will be built from the notes of that scale.
So an example. Lets use G major.
The G major scale is
G A B C D E F# G
Triads make up chords, so G major chord is
G B D
That's pretty standard stuff.
But lets move up to the II in G major, and build a triad.
That gives us
A C E : A minor.
If we move to the III,
B D F#: B minor.
The IV
C E G: C major
The V:
D F# A: D major
The VI:
E G B: E minor
The VII:
F# A C: F# diminshed
So if you're able to play the major scale, you can determine which triads are going to be appropriate for the key.
From a scale perspective, the various modes are what you need to know. You've probably heard of "relative minor" scales. What that means is that each major scale has a minor scale made up of the exact same notes. For G major, it's E minor.
G major scale:
G A B C D E F# G
E minor scale:
E F# G A B C D E
The relative minor for any major scale is indicated by the VI of the scale, so it's easy to locate.
Each of the modal scales is determined in the exact same way.
A Dorian is derived from G major. Exact same notes. You will also note that you can build the aforementioned triads from this scale.
A B C D E F# G A
B Phrygian:
B C D E F# G A B
C Lydian:
C D E F# G A B C
D Myxolidian:
D E F# G A B C
E Aoelian (a.k.a E minor):
E F# G A B C D E
F# Lydian (a.k.a freaky jazz guy )
F# A B C D E F#
So all of that is derived directly from the major scale. If you know the scale patterns, all of this will fall out of it, and you don't have to memorize hardly anything.
Someday we'll win this thing...
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