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Step 1
Start with your chromatic scale. This is like the "do re mi fa so la ti do" you may remember from music class in elementary school. "Do re mi..." is a vocal imitation of a harmonized major chromatic scale. To use this scale, you'll need to mark the notes on paper or in your head. For the key of C, it's like this: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C, where the last C is an octave (begins to repeat the scale).
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Step 2
Mark the one, four and five notes of the scale. These are the notes where, if you select the first, third and fifth scale notes, you get a major chord. For the C note, it's C-E-G, for the F note, it's F-A-C, and for G, it's G-B-D. You can call these the major key notes and represent them however you want (some musicians prefer Roman numerals,so as not to get mixed up, since the scale notes are numbered).
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Step 3
Identify the two, three and six notes of the scale. These are the notes where, if you take their first, third and fifth scale notes, you're building a "minor" chord.
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Step 4
Note that the seventh scale note as the "irregular" note. For the seventh scale note, in this case B, if you select it's first, third and fifth scale notes, in this case B-D-F, you'll get a diminished chord.
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Step 5
Experiment with your harmonized major scale by playing each of the chords and noticing how different they sound. Remember, you're selecting the first scale note for each chord and counting three and five on your written down scale to get the notes. You should hear a "minor" sound for the two, three and five chords, and a stranger sound for the seven.
