Stacked Fourths

This chord scale is useful for improvising and comping, especially when you want to improvise a moving chord line against a static chord.  The scale is also useful when playing chord melodies.  As the notes in the chords are a series of fourths, this concept is sometimes referred to as 'quartal harmony'.

The scale is built from a simple triad: D, G, C (the melody note is on the top), and outlines the sound of the major scale.  It is easy to build other chord scales by using this idea; start with a chord, map the scale up the neck of the guitar on each single string.  The corresponding series of notes will make a scale of chords.  Creating a table (see below) and filling it with the scale notes helps when learning chord scales.  See the cycle of fifths tutorial to see how these notes relate to each other.