Eb Major Chord Scale, Chords in The Key of E Flat Major

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The Eb major chord scale is a set of chords that are all in the E flat major key, and is a perfect scale to invoke emotions like cruelty & hardship. This post will go over the Eb major chord scale, how it differs from other scales, and why musicians need to know this information. The Eb major chord scale is also the same as the D# major chord scale. So, if you’re looking for that, you’re in the right place!

What Chords Are in The E Flat Major Scale?

To find out the chords in the Eb major scale, you first need to find out what notes are in the Eb major scale.

The Eb major scale consists of:

Once you have the notes of the Eb major scale, you use something called a chord scale formula to work out which note is assigned to which chord value (major, minor, diminished & so on). Each of the above notes will have a chord assigned to it, and the way we work it out, is using the minor chord scale formula.

The major & minor chord scale formulas are:

Because the key you’re working in is major, you’ll want to use the major chord scale formula, which is: Major Minor Minor Major Major Minor Diminished. Using this chord scale formula, you plug it into the note from the E flat major scale.

Therefore the Eb major chord scale consists of:

• Eb major
• F minor
• G minor
• Ab major
• Bb major
• C minor
• D diminished

If you don’t know how to play the natural triad shapes of these chords, you can use chord spellings to work them out by yourself. To do this, you always use the chord spelling formulas on the major key. So, if you wanted to find a minor chord, you’d use the major scale of the root note you want to build it from, using the major chord spelling to find the correct notes.

The most common chord spellings are:

• Major – 1, 3, 5
• Minor – 1, b3, 5
• Diminished – 1, b3, b5
• Augmented – 1, 3, #5

So let’s take the 3rd chord as an example. Seeing as it’s a G minor chord, you’ll want to use the minor spelling listed above, but use the G major scale. This is because the spellings are based off the major scale. So, take the G major scale, count the 1 note (G), then the 3 note and move it a semi-tone down (Bb), then the 5 note (D).

Chords In The Key of Eb major

All of the chords listed above are in the E flat major scale, and you can play these in any order to create chord progressions that sound great, in the key of Eb major. Some combinations will sound better than others, but this is all about trial and error.

You can use the chords above to make basic sounding progressions, but if you want to sound a bit more professional, you’ll want to start adding extensions, bass notes and inversions. We cover this extensively in our Piano Chord Poster PDF guide, which comes with every purchase of a poster.

What Notes Are in The Chords of The E Flat Major Scale?

Now you know what the chords are in the Eb major scale, you should know what notes make up each chord. In this section below we’ll list each chord and the notes, for you.

1. Eb major – Eb, G, Bb
2. F minor – F, Ab, C
3. G minor – G, Bb, D
4. Ab major – Ab, C, Eb
5. Bb major – Bb, D, F
6. C minor – C, Eb, G
7. D diminished – D, F, Ab

The Key of D Sharp Major

You’ll have also noticed that the Eb major chord scale has the same chords as the D# major chord scale. But the notes and chords have different names. This key isn’t used very much because of notation difficulties and the need for double sharps.

If you are playing in the key of D# minor it will sound the exact same, but will be harder to put down in notation & read.

Common Chord Progressions in Eb Major

You may also start with pre-made chord progressions that already sound appealing to get things going. These are some typical chord progressions that will work. You only need to replace the Roman numerals figures on the charts above with the corresponding numbers.

Anything with a 6, 7, 9 after it, is an extension chord, lowercase = minor, and uppercase = major.

• I–V–vi–IV
• V–vi–IV–I
• vi–IV–I–V
• IV–I–V–vi