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Chords & Progressions

They Analyzed 1,300 Songs & Here’s What They Found

by Jermaine Griggs

I recently came across a site called, HookTheory.com, where they’ve created innovative tools to analyze songs and chord progressions. I really think they’re on to something great there but what really caught my attention is their analysis of over 1,300 songs. What’s more, they’ve organized their findings into a very intuitive, visual format that anyone [...]

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Here’s a Nice Sounding Chord Movement You Can Use Immediately

by Jermaine Griggs

In this post, I want to share a cool way to play a 1-chord. What do I mean by “1-chord?” It’s simple. Every major key has chords associated with each tone of its scale. For example, the C major’s scale is: By simply numbering the scale, you get: C = 1 D = 2 E [...]

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The Art Of Polychords

by Jermaine Griggs

If you’ve ever wondered how master musicians execute and remember large, extended chord voicings, understanding polychords will be especially helpful for you. A polychord is simply a big chord made up of smaller ones. For example, C minor 11 is: By all means, this would be considered a “big” chord. But do you really have to [...]

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The Secret To Smooth Playing

by Jermaine Griggs

If your playing suffers from lack of smoothness or your chords sound choppy or disconnected from one another, here’s one technique you can practice and employ almost immediately to enhance the flow of your playing. The secret is “INVERSIONS.” Granted, you may not always have the liberty to change the inversion of a chord, especially [...]

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The “80/20 Rule” Of Playing Piano By Ear

by Jermaine Griggs

The “80/20 Rule” states that 80% of results or rewards will come from 20% of causes or effort. Put another way, 20% of input creates 80% of output. This especially applies to music, where the same chords and progressions repeat themselves over and over. Think about it — how many times have you played the [...]

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A Quick Follow-Up To “Approach Chords”

by Jermaine Griggs

After writing about Approach Chords the other day, I received a request for more of these types of chords. Recall the definition of approach chords – In music, an approach chord is a chord one half-step higher or lower than the goal (aka – place you’re going to), and especially helpful in turnarounds and chord [...]

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Using Approach Chords To Spice Up Your Sound!

by Jermaine Griggs

In music, an approach chord is a chord one half-step higher or lower than the goal (aka – place you’re going to), and especially helpful in turnarounds and chord progressions that move in fourths.

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How To Play Almost Any Chord With Two Fingers

by Jermaine Griggs

In most chords, only two fingers really matter. And the truth is: You can get rid of all the other tones in your chord, keeping only these two notes and your chord will still sound great. What are those tones? Answer: The 3rd and 7th degrees of your chord. Let me explain. Major 7th chords [...]

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How To Figure Out The “Natural” Chords Of Every Key

by Jermaine Griggs

In the 300-pg course, “The Secrets To Playing Piano By Ear,” we cover the diatonic chords of every major scale. Don’t worry if you don’t know what “diatonic” means — it’s just a fancy way of saying “pertaining to the major or minor scale,” the most common of all scales. Each major key has a set of diatonic chords that naturally occur on each tone of the scale. To figure out these chords, just…

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It’s All In How You Look At It (Sus4 and Sus2 chords)

by Jermaine Griggs

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.

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