Finding more chords
Wouldn't it suck if everything was just I–V–vi–IV all the time?
The wheel shows six chords at a time. The bumpers and the left stick's click get you to the rest of them.
Dominant and parallel
The chord wheel always shows six chords. Which six depends on where you're holding it. Home is where the wheel rests, and it holds the key's own chords. Dominant and Parallel are visits - you hold a bumper for them and they're gone when you let go.
Home
Home is the key's diatonic triads minus the diminished one, arranged with the tonic at the top - the wheel from the previous page.
Dominant: hold the right bumper
Hold R1 and every wedge turns into the dominant seventh of whatever the Home chord is in that same position. Where C sits at Home, G7 sits in Dominant. Where Am sits, E7 sits.
Stick position means the same thing in both palettes, so the gesture goes: point at the chord you want, strum the tension, release the bumper, strum the arrival.
- Minor keys get a real dominant. Natural minor hasn't got a leading tone and the Dominant visit has. In D Minor the tonic position holds A7, raised third and all.
- Home stays consonant. The seventh chords are only ever one held bumper away, and resolving them is just letting go of the bumper.
Parallel: hold the left bumper
Hold L1 and every wedge turns into the Home chord in the same position with its quality flipped - major goes minor, minor goes major. Same root, same place on the wheel, the other colour. From C Major's wheel, C becomes Cm, Dm becomes D, Em becomes E.
This is where the borrowed chords live - the minor iv in a major song, the major IV in a minor one - held on a bumper without ever writing them into the key.
Letting go comes home
Both visits are momentary. Let the bumper go and the wheel returns Home. Hold both and the newer press wins, then release it and the older one is still there waiting.
Chords that are already ringing are never altered by a visit. All the palettes decide is what the next strum plays.
Extended chords
Every palette has a second layer. Hold the left stick in - L3 - and whichever wheel you're looking at (Home, Dominant or Parallel) shows it. Release and it's gone.
Like the bumper visits, it's momentary and only affects what you play next.
What each layer holds
| Palette | Held with L3 |
|---|---|
| Home | Suspensions - each triad trades its third for the note above it |
| Dominant | Suspended dominants - V7sus in every position |
| Parallel | Sevenths - each flipped chord deepened by its seventh |
Release order is the phrase
The bumpers and L3 stack, and the order you release them in is the order the harmony moves. Here's one example with the stick held at the tonic position the whole way through:
- Hold the right bumper R1 and the stick click L3: strum V7sus.
- Release the stick click, keep the bumper: strum V7.
- Release the bumper: strum home.
Every combination of bumper and layer stacks the same way.