Roma Numerals Notating Bass Guitar Chords on a B Major Scale

Video Transcript

"RYAN LARSON: Now, I'm going to show you how music is analyzed at the college level and the system that they use is they use roman numerals for each scale degree. So we start on the I, we have I, ii minor, iii minor, IV major, V7, vi minor, vii half-diminished, I. So it's just numbered 1 through 7 but if you look at the actual roman numerals, we saw I major right, that's our B major, ii minor our C sharp minor, iii minor D sharp minor, IV is our E major, V is our F sharp 7th, vi is our G sharp minor, and our vii is our A sharp half-diminished. So those are the chords, so we actually go through and analyze tunes, like right here you have B major so we got I major, so we put a roman numeral I right here, then you have C sharp minor, our ii minor right?, B, C right? then F sharp is our V right? B, C, D, E, F so 1-2-3-4-5. So you got I major, ii minor to V7. So you go through and analyze your tunes and remember it's not always going to stay on the same key, so sometimes it might switch into a different key and you might have to readjust your positioning or go to a different scale degree but as long as you are reading in like nice simple tunes, a lot of simple tunes stay right in this major scale, unless maybe if you get some Wayne Shorter tunes, some Jaco tunes move around a lot, but a lot of basic standards, especially tunes from the 30s and 40s stay right in this major modal position on B in the bass."