Applied Chords Ref Sheet

This is a Blaugust 2026 blog post. I’m now in my third term of music theory. Back in the first term, I created a handy reference sheet for major and minor scales. I just added a new ref sheet for what’s called applied (or secondary) chords. A Bit of Music Theory (If you know basic music theory, go ahead and skip this part.) First, listen to this music snippet: Here is the music score for what you just heard: If you enumerate the C major scale – C-D-E-F-G-A-B – you see that C is the first note. The chord built on top of it is a C major chord, and is denoted by roman numeral I. Similarly, F is the fourth note on the scale. The chord built on it is an F major chord, and is denoted by roman numeral IV. And the final chord in the sequence is the V chord, a G major chord. This sequence is the I-IV-V chords in the major scale. You’ve heard this a zillion times. So, what comes next in the song? Probably a C major chord. Your ear really, really wants to hear this resolve back to a C major…