Lowercase Roman Numeral Chords
Found in: Accompaniment, Curriculum
Ian B., California
In Accompaniment 2 (Scale Tone Chords and Transposition), Why doesn’t Neil use or mention the fairly standard nomenclature of scale degrees where the Roman numeral is capitalized when MAJOR or lower case when minor (I ii iii IV V vi vii)?
He says that the notes he’s making are an “informal system” but ESPECIALLY with regard to exceptions (ex. Major IV in a minor key, or minor iv in a major key), I’ve found that standard VERY helpful. Not to mention it becomes crucial in differentiating minor keys from major at a glance.
Do other teachers incorporate this standard when teaching Accompaniment 2?
Maureen K., California
Yes I use that standard, using lower case Roman numerals for the ii, iii, vi and vii chords.
That said, I also use moments like these to mention to my students that different groups of musicians use different systems to communicate. Throughout the program, I find myself commenting that the language of music evolved more like English evolved–it is not precise and determined. For example Cm7 is best thought of as (Cm)7 while Cmaj7 is C(maj7). It would be easy to misinterpret a Cmaj7 as the C major chord + the 7th if one didn’t realize this
When teaching Family Tree I put the chart in the Roman numeral 12 bar blues format to show them it is yet another iteration of the 12 bar blues. I can understand why Neil didn’t do this, but I find it helpful to teach it that way.
I sometimes mention that some musicians write chords in ordinary Arabic numbers. (I know musicians who use Nashville notation, or make up their own version of that for their bandmembers. I don’t teach that to my students per se, but I just want to be aware that as musicians, they’ll sometimes need to ask the author (or google!) to figure out what is meant by particular notation.) I just want my students to be flexible. It seems like a good teaching moment to point out a notation that you prefer vs one that Neil uses.
Original discussion started January 27, 2019