“Can someone explain Roman Numeral Analysis in layman’s terms for me?” To do that, we should take a closer look at the numbers.
Notice that some Roman numerals have capital letters and others don’t:
- Upper case Roman numerals indicate major chords.
- Major chords sound bright and happy.
- Lower case Roman numerals indicate minor chords.
- Minor chords sound dark and sad.
- The lower case Roman numeral with a superscript “o” indicates a diminished chord.
- Diminished chords sound tense.
Also, notice that we have some normal numbers on the chart as well:
- These indicate the intervals between the notes of each chord.
- We define an interval as the distance between two notes.
For example, the V chord (G major on the chart above):
- The note G we call the root of the chord, which we use to name the chord.
- The note B we call the third, because it is three notes above G in the scale.
- The note D we call the fifth, because it is five notes above G in the scale.
Why use both Roman numerals and normal numbers?
- We use the Roman numerals to indicate on what note of the scale we’ve built a chord.
- We use our normal numbers to indicate the intervals used in each chord.