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Ok, you’ve seen them around and maybe you have a clue that they relate to the chords in a song but what are they really all about? Well, since I’m trying to figure it out myself, let me share what I’ve found. The first thing to know is what number the Roman Numeral stands for. I know that most people know these but hey, there are plenty of people that don’t so lets just take a moment to get people on the same page.
Upper Case (Major) Lower Case (Minor) Value
I i 1
II ii 2
III iii 3
IV iv 4
V v 5
VI vi 6
VII vii 7
We’re going to work with the key of C Major so we don’t get confused with any sharps and flats. Of course in its most recognizable form, it looks like the scale below where we go from the Tonic (C) up an octave to the next C and then back down.
The table below relates the “scale degree” that’s associated with the roman numeral. The value listed can be thought of as an interval or distance from the tonic or root note. Remember, this interval STARTS on the root note so, for example, to get to IV from I you count…C-D-E-F (1-2-3-4). F is the IV note in the Key of C Major.
| Roman Numeral | Scale Degree |
|---|---|
| I | Tonic |
| ii | Supertonic |
| iii | Mediant |
| IV | Subdominate |
| V | Dominate |
| vi | Submediant |
| vii diminished/bVII | Leading Tonic/Subtonic |
You probably won’t hear some of the terms in the above table in your jam session with your buddies. If you do, the most likely ones will be Tonic, Subdominant, and Dominant. That’s because many popular songs and blues progressions use the I-IV-IV chords almost exclusively. Check out the 12 bar blues which in it’s most basic form uses these three chords.
OK, now your asking yourself, “Now that I know the above information, what can I do with it?” Well, the beauty of working with the Roman Numerals is that you can talk about songs and song structure without worrying about what key it’s in. I’m finding that it’s helpful to understand songs this way because it helps me to understand what scales I can play on top of them. More on that another day, but it also allows me to be able to switch up the key of a song pretty quickly by simply moving the song to it’s new tonic and keeping the intervals the same. Knowing this stuff gets you one stop closer to understanding what your buddy says, “Let’s play this one in C, the progression is I-vi-IV-V”. In your head you can quickly calculate that what he means is that we’re start on C, move up to Am, back down to F, and then up to G.
