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Wayne Dyer said: “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
It’s true in music too. Quite literally.
Take, for example, suspended chords.
If you ever see a suspended 4 chord (or “sus4″), it simply means to play the fourth instead of the third in a major chord.
I have a treat for you!
After being away for 5 years, I caught up with James Wrubel (from our jazz courses) and invited him to do some helpful lessons for you.
The first one is 17 minutes and available at: http://www.hearandplay.com/jazzlesson
This edition of “Ask Jermaine” was posted by Ronald Verwer in our Free Lessons area. He writes:
Hi Jermaine, how fabulous the way you are explaining the composition of the various chords. Your flash cards are a great help. It becomes so easy to follow. By just sitting on the piano and practicing with the flashcards improves my playing tremendously. Even after 60 years of playing! You are a legend. The thing I want to know is how to create that Jazzy sound…
Half-diminished 7th chords are very important.
Not only do they naturally occur on the 7th tone of any major scale, they are used as great preparers for dominant chords on the 5th tone.
If you play gospel, you’ve undoubtedly used a half-diminished 7th chord on the 2nd tone of the scale to lead to the 5th…
In music, when you get this one single concept, it unlocks the door to many things!
The 6th tone of any major scale is your gateway to “minor!”
Just remember the 6th tone. That’s it.
For example, if you take a regular C major scale (C D E F G A B C) and start and end on the 6th tone without changing any of the notes, you’ll get an “A minor” scale (A B C D E F G A).
The same applies for chords…
Polychords are huge extended chords that consist of two or more smaller chords.
As your chords get bigger and bigger, you’ll spot smaller chords within.
These smaller chords present opportunities to explore other voicings.
For example, if you spot a C minor triad and an Eb major 7 in the same chord, this gives you countless ways to voice the chord… including two-hand versions…
In this post, I figured I’d switch things up by showing you how easy it is to pick out Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never Piano Chords.
For years, I’ve been preaching how most popular songs use extremely simple chords and the same recurring patterns over and over.
My 4-year old daughter, Jadyn, like many other young girls is a huge fan so she pulled me to the piano and made me learn Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never chords…
This week’s question is about “minor-major 7″ chords and comes from Amy S in Phoenix, AZ:
“Jermaine, I’ve heard of major and minor 7 chords but I just heard someone say minor-major 7 and thought they were joking until I realized this chord really exists. Do you mind shedding some light on it?”
My Answer…
This lesson will be short and sweet.
There are many ways to play chords.
You can play them exactly as written in root position, first, and second inversion… but this gets boring.
Or you can choose to be more “stylish” with your chord voicings. One of the ways you can switch things up is by understanding “open” voicings…
In this lesson, I’m switching things up a little bit.
Warning: This isn’t for beginners. These chord progressions will require a “stretch” — multiple octave playing. But nevertheless, it’s good to feed the brain with what is to come (hopefully in the near future).
Today, I want to talk about altered minor chords and altered dominant chords…
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