Let’s get right to work!

Yesterday, I left off by showing you how to add the 3-chord to your songs. We stuck with the basic E minor chord and we inverted it so the melody “G” was on top:

“A-ma-zing grace* how”
C major (1st inversion) ~~~
(E + G + C)

*On “grace,” the melody changes to “E” so you can actually invert your chord from “E+G+C” to “G+C+E” (which is 2nd inversion).

“Sweet the”
F major (root inversion) ~~~
(F + A + C)

“Sound.”
C major (root inversion) ~~~
(C + E + G)

“That”
E minor (2nd inversion)
(B + E + G)

“saved a”
A minor 7 ~~~
(E + A + C / A bass)

“wretch like”
D major (add 9) ~~~
(F# + A + E / D bass)

-OR-

D9
(F# + A + C + E / D bass)

“Me”
G major (first inversion) ~~~
(B + D + G)

I promised yesterday to show you something else you could do with the 3-chord on the word, “that.”

As you learned on Thursday, substituting major for minor can sound much better at times. It doesn’t work all the time but it’s usually worth a try.

If it sounds worse, you just revert back to using minor… it’s that simple!

The reason it works is because it’s sort of operating like a 5-chord temporarily. And if you’ve learned just one thing from me, it should be that 5-chords have very strong pulls back to their tonic chords (that is, the “1-chord”). So when you take a 3-chord (in this case, “E minor”) and change it to an E major, it’s temporarily operating like a 5-chord to the next chord, which is A minor. E is the 5th tone in the key of “A.”

So let’s substitute E minor for E major and see what happens:

“A-ma-zing grace* how”
C major (1st inversion) ~~~
(E + G + C)

*On “grace,” the melody changes to “E” so you can actually invert your chord from “E+G+C” to “G+C+E” (which is 2nd inversion).

“Sweet the”
F major (root inversion) ~~~
(F + A + C)

“Sound.”
C major (root inversion) ~~~
(C + E + G)

“That”
E minor (2nd inversion)
(B + E + G#)

“saved a”
A minor 7 ~~~
(E + A + C / A bass)

“wretch like”
D major (add 9) ~~~
(F# + A + E / D bass)

-OR-

D9
(F# + A + C + E / D bass)

“Me”
G major (first inversion) ~~~
(B + D + G)

That sounds good!

Only one problem though…

By switching from E minor (B+E+G) to E major (B+E+G#), we’ve gotten rid of our melody note, which is “G.”

Here’s a perfect introduction to altering chords to make them sound the way you want.

And truth be told, it’s the way I found out about a lot of the altered chords I learned when I was 11 years old and playing for a bunch of churches (A long long long long time ago, hehe!)

Basically, new chords that you’ll learn that are not the “obvious” ones come out of dilemmas. Just remember that.

Usually, the story goes something like this.

Darn! That chord sounds good there but how can I play that chord but also keep the melody on top? How can I include the same notes of the chord that pulls to the next chord a lot smoother but still include my melody on top?

These are the questions you ask yourself. And here’s how to get to an answer…

Let’s take the E major chord (B+E+G#), which sounds great, and alter it so that we keep the melody on top.

Since “G” is the true melody, G# would overshadow it because G# is higher than G. So first, I need to invert this chord so that G# is on the bottom. This will leave room for me to play the “G” up top.

E major

G# + B + E

Now, I’m going to put my melody note up top…

G# + B + E + G

(This is a weird chord because it has both a major third and what appears to be a minor third. What you can do is change the “G” to “F##” but that gets really really technical. That would make this chord an E major #9. For the purposes of keeping this post simple, I’m just going to call it a “G” rather than the true #9, “F##” ok? I just wanted you to know how I’d go about naming this chord).

Now, this chord sounds alright to me but when I hear it, something tells me it can be better.

Since I’m also playing E on my left hand, one thing I can do to make this chord better is NOT play E on my right:

G# + B + G on right /// E bass on left

Here’s another tip…

Whenever you take out the keynote of a chord from your right hand and only play it on your left, check to see if the flat 7th note works, especially if the foundation of the chord is major. This will turn the foundation into a dominant chord.

In this case, we’d add “D.”

This makes the beginning of our chord:

[E on bass] + G# + B + D (that’s an E dominant 7 chord, a.k.a. - “E7″).

Then we add our altered note up top:

G# + B + D + G on right /// E bass on left

I don’t know about you but this chord sounds really good! And it works perfectly in the song because it keeps the melody on top.

Basically, we switched our minor chord to a major chord. Then we inverted the major chord to allow room for the melody note.

Once we heard it, we made little changes by taking out the repetitive “E” on the right hand and only played it on the left. Then, we added the flat 7th degree to create a dominant chord as the foundation.

This gave us our masterpiece:

G# + B + D + G on right /// E bass on left

Let’s plug it into our song.

“A-ma-zing grace* how”
C major (1st inversion) ~~~
(E + G + C)

*On “grace,” the melody changes to “E” so you can actually invert your chord from “E+G+C” to “G+C+E” (which is 2nd inversion).

“Sweet the”
F major (root inversion) ~~~
(F + A + C)

“Sound.”
C major (root inversion) ~~~
(C + E + G)

“That”
E7 #9
(G# + B + D + G / E bass)

“saved a”
A minor 7 ~~~
(E + A + C / A bass)

“wretch like”
D major (add 9) ~~~
(F# + A + E / D bass)

-OR-

D9
(F# + A + C + E / D bass)

“Me”
G major (first inversion) ~~~
(B + D + G)

I’m tempted to end the blog post here but I have one more idea for ya! (Don’t ya just love me???) :)

Let’s see if we can make this chord even better.

Here’s what I’ve learned over the years. Whenever you have a dominant chord with a sharp 9 alteration (like this chord), you can also sharp the 5th tone in the chord and it will provide even more pull to your next chord.

G# + B + D + G on right /// E bass on left

In this chord, the 5th degree is “B.”

E major scale
E F# G# A B C# D#

Change that to B# (or for simplicity’s sake, let’s just say “C” for this blog post).

Now you get:

E7 #9#5

G# + C + D + G on right /// E bass on left

Now, let’s try to plug it in…

“A-ma-zing grace* how”
C major (1st inversion) ~~~
(E + G + C)

*On “grace,” the melody changes to “E” so you can actually invert your chord from “E+G+C” to “G+C+E” (which is 2nd inversion).

“Sweet the”
F major (root inversion) ~~~
(F + A + C)

“Sound.”
C major (root inversion) ~~~
(C + E + G)

“That”
E7 #9
(G# + B + D + G / E bass)

-OR-

E7 #9#5
(G# + C + D + G / E bass)

“saved a”
A minor 7 ~~~
(E + A + C / A bass)

“wretch like”
D major (add 9) ~~~
(F# + A + E / D bass)

-OR-

D9
(F# + A + C + E / D bass)

“Me”
G major (first inversion) ~~~
(B + D + G)

*I know that’s a big jump from the E chord you just learned to the next one (A chord) but after practicing it, you’ll be fine! The key is keeping that melody on top and since the melody jumps from “G” to “C,” it’s not unusual for the chords to jump to follow it.

Well, that’s all for today!

I’d like to hear what you guys think about these two new chords. Let me know…

Until next time,

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Today, we’re going to keep building on what we learned Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

If you haven’t caught up, it might be a good idea to do so now. If not, just keep reading this lesson and if it makes sense, awesome! If not, visit the links above as this lessons builds on prior concepts.

As you know, we’ve been talking about using the number system and how to go from playing “Amazing Grace” with only three chords (aka - the “primary chords”) to adding more interesting chords from other tones of the scale.

On Wednesday, it was pretty simple. We just played a few songs by simply using the 1, 4, and 5 chords of the scale. We learned that those are called primary chords.

Thursday, we added the 2-chord. We also started looking closer at the circle of fifths and how chord progressions work. Like how the 2-chord pulls strongly to the 5-chord. We ended up slipping this chord in Amazing Grace right before the 5-chord and it worked brilliantly!

Then on Friday, we continued to mess with the circle and made a new discovery. That if we can use the 2-chord to progress to its neighbor on the circle (the 5-chord), then we can most certainly use the 6-chord to progress to the 2-chord.

After all, we could easily play Amazing Grace with just the 1, 4, and 5 chord. But the 2-chord made it more interesting by leading to the 5-chord. But we just took it a step further and asked the question: “What if we could pull to the chord that pulls to the 5-chord? How would that sound?” And it worked!

So we added our 6-chord. It led us to our 2-chord.

All of this can be seen on the circle.

Just look for these tones on the circle:

1) First, look for the primary chords of C major: C, F, and G. Notice they are neighbors on the circle. That means they have a very strong connection with each other.

2) Then, look for “D.” Notice that it’s a neighbor to G. That’s how we figured out we could lead to G by using some type of D chord.

3) Why don’t you also look for “A.” That was Friday’s lesson. It opened our eyes to the fact that we could also progress to a tone that progresses to another tone. We also learned another way of looking at the 6-chord (or “A” in this case). It’s commonly used as a tonic substitution, which means it can take the place of a 1-chord when you want to switch things up. And if you pay even more attention to the inner part of the circle, you’ll notice that “A minor” is associated with C major. In fact, they share the same exact slice on the circle at 12 o’clock.

And to be honest, there’s tons more patterns and observations that can be made from the circle. You can learn so much about music just by comparing what you already know about songs to that circle! (Try it when you get some time…)

Now that you’ve gotten my brief executive review of pretty much most of last week, let’s work to make “Amazing Grace” even better.

Here’s how far we got on Friday:

“A-ma-zing grace* how”
C major (1st inversion) ~~~
(E + G + C)

*On “grace,” the melody changes to “E” so you can actually invert your chord from “E+G+C” to “G+C+E” (which is 2nd inversion).

“Sweet the”
F major (root inversion) ~~~
(F + A + C)

“Sound.”
C major (root inversion) ~~~
(C + E + G)

“That”
(In previous lessons, I told you not to play a chord here yet. Today, however, we will!)

“saved a”
A minor 7 ~~~
(E + A + C / A bass)

“wretch like”
D major (add 9) ~~~
(F# + A + E / D bass)

-OR-

D9
(F# + A + C + E / D bass)

“Me”
G major (first inversion) ~~~
(B + D + G)

I want to focus on the word “that.”

I know in previous posts, I said I wouldn’t do anything with that chord.

And that’s correct… if you’re only limited to the primary chords, D minor, D major, or A minor.

But if you extend the circle just a little further, then the word “that” becomes a powerful passing tone.

So if the chord right after “that” is “A minor,” what do you recommend playing on “that?”

(Hint: Work backwards… the G chord is where all this leads to… the D chord leads directly to it… the A chord leads to the D chord… so just look at the circle and figure out what leads to A)…

If you guessed “E,” you’re right on track!

Now, I don’t have much time to explain why “E,” (which is the 3rd tone of C) is minor but you can find prior lessons on this.

But just take my word for it…

The third tone of any scale, just like the 2nd and 6th tone, is most likely to be a minor chord.

And it fits perfectly because the melody on the word “that” is G. (Remember what I said about keeping the melody on top?)

E minor:
E + G + B

Simply invert this chord to make G the highest note:

E minor (inverted):

B + E + G

Now, let’s plug it into our song:

“A-ma-zing grace* how”
C major (1st inversion) ~~~
(E + G + C)

*On “grace,” the melody changes to “E” so you can actually invert your chord from “E+G+C” to “G+C+E” (which is 2nd inversion).

“Sweet the”
F major (root inversion) ~~~
(F + A + C)

“Sound.”
C major (root inversion) ~~~
(C + E + G)

“That”
E minor (2nd inversion)
(B + E + G)

“saved a”
A minor 7 ~~~
(E + A + C / A bass)

“wretch like”
D major (add 9) ~~~
(F# + A + E / D bass)

-OR-

D9
(F# + A + C + E / D bass)

“Me”
G major (first inversion) ~~~
(B + D + G)

Wow, this song is sounding better and better!

I really hope this series of lessons is helping you see the big picture. How to take a song from just three primary chords (which can very well be used to play probably 80% of songs out there but they’ll sound extremely basic) to fully functioning chord progressions.

Tomorrow, I’ll show you how to make this 3-chord (on “E”) even better! There’s a trick you can actually use on 3-chords.

In fact, the 3-chord is one of my favorites.

Until then,

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(If you haven’t read Wednesday’s and Thursday’s post, it’d be a good idea to start there as this lesson continues with what we’ve already learned…)

Today, we’re going to keep exploring the number system and circle of fifths and see what else we can do to spice up the primary chords we already know.

Yesterday, we took it a step further and added the 2-chord.

C major

1-chord
(C major)

2-chord
(D minor)
(D major, when needed)

4-chord
(F major)

5-chord
(G major)

Now, let’s see what else we can add to spice up our progressions.

Let’s bring up my little friend…

You’re already familiar with the counter-clockwise motion of the circle and how chord progressions work. We covered that yesterday. In fact, that’s where we got the idea to introduce the “D” chord right before the G chord (because before that, we were only working with primary chords: C major, F major, and G major).

But it goes even further…

If you want to make things more interesting, you can actually lead to the chord that leads to your primary chord. Yes!

Let me repeat…

Like I said before, composers could easily write most songs with just primary chords, the 1, 4 and 5. But that would mean really basic songs.

In fact, songs like “Hallelujah,” “Lord I Lift Your Name on High,” and (I’ll go left field with this one), “Wild Thing” simply use primary chords. And in the regular 1-4-5 order at that!

But as we learned yesterday, you can use other tones of the scale to lead to your primary chords. So rather than having C major (1-chord) go straight to a G major (5-chord), you can slip a D minor or D major (2-chord) to make things more interesting.

But now, I’m going to show you how to take it a step further and determine what to play before the 2-chord, if you wanted to add even more variety:

Observe the circle.

Where’s D?

What does it lead to?

G, right?

But what leads to D?

Bingo!

That’s the chord you’re going to try to slip in… some type of “A” chord (usually it will be minor, but there are times when it’ll be major or dominant).

Let’s see if we can make this work for “Amazing Grace.”

Here’s how far we got yesterday…

“A-ma-zing grace* how”
C major (1st inversion) ~~~
(E + G + C)

*On “grace,” the melody changes to “E” so you can actually invert your chord from “E+G+C” to “G+C+E” (which is 2nd inversion).

“Sweet the”
F major (root inversion) ~~~
(F + A + C)

“Sound.”
C major (root inversion) ~~~
(C + E + G)

“That saved a”
C major (1st inversion) ~~~
(E + G + C)

“wretch like”
D major (add 9) ~~~
(F# + A + E / D bass)

-OR-

D9
(F# + A + C + E / D bass)

“Me”
G major (first inversion) ~~~
(B + D + G)

Now, if you had to add this “A chord” somewhere, where would you put it?

On what word of this song would you hit this chord? (Remember, it needs to come before the 2-chord on D).

Answer:

I’d put it on “saved.”

“Sound.”
C major (root inversion) ~~~
(C + E + G)

“That”
(I wouldn’t really play a chord here since this word is like a pickup. Just let the previous chord take care of it).

“saved a”
A minor (2nd inversion) ~~~
(E + A + C)

“wretch like”
D major (add 9) ~~~
(F# + A + E / D bass)

-OR-

D9
(F# + A + C + E / D bass)

“Me”
G major (first inversion) ~~~
(B + D + G)

Notice, I used “A minor” before the 2-chord. Using a major chord there doesn’t work (but always try it in other situations to make sure it’s not the better fit… but like I said, the minor chord is standard on the 6th degree).

There are two reasons the “A minor” works there.

1) “A” leads strongly to “D” as we know from the circle of fifths.

2) “A minor” is actually the relative minor of “C major.” They share the same key signature. They basically live in the same house. They are very close as well. In fact, their triads almost share the same notes:

A minor
A + C + E

C major
C + E + G

2 out of 3 notes are the same.

But something even better happens when you change “A minor” to an “A minor 7″ chord.

“A minor 7″
A + C + E + G

Wow! It’s basically a C major chord, except for “A” is on the bottom.

Yup yup! To form the relative minor seventh chord, you just play the same chord on your right but change your bass to “A” (or the 6-tone).

So any time you have a song that comes back to the 1-chord, try the 6-bass (that is, “A”) on your left hand with the same 1-chord on your right hand and not only do you totally change the feel to a minor seventh chord that easily, but it provides the variety you need!

(The technical term is called the “tonic substitution.” It’s when you substitute chords for the 1 that sound very similar. “A minor 7″ and “E minor 7,” for example, are common tonic substitutions. “A minor” has A + C + E + G (3 notes in common with C major 7) and “E minor” has E + G + B + D (also 3 notes in common with C major 7). So regardless of what key you’re in, try substituting the 6-chord or 3-chord in place of the 1-chord to see what you come up with.

So let’s try the addition of the A minor 7 (which is no change in the right hand, just a new bass note):

“A-ma-zing grace* how”
C major (1st inversion) ~~~
(E + G + C)

*On “grace,” the melody changes to “E” so you can actually invert your chord from “E+G+C” to “G+C+E” (which is 2nd inversion).

“Sweet the”
F major (root inversion) ~~~
(F + A + C)

“Sound.”
C major (root inversion) ~~~
(C + E + G)

“That”
(I wouldn’t really play either of these chords here since this word is like a pickup. Just let the previous chord linger. In a future post, I’ll introduce the “3-chord.” If anything, I’d put it here but we’ll talk about that later).

“saved a”
A minor 7 ~~~
(E + A + C / A bass)

“wretch like”
D major (add 9) ~~~
(F# + A + E / D bass)

-OR-

D9
(F# + A + C + E / D bass)

“Me”
G major (first inversion) ~~~
(B + D + G)

So there you have it!

You’ve just added one more scale tone to your arsenal!

You started with just primary chords:

C major
F major
G major

Yesterday, you added the 2-chord:

C major
D minor (substitute major)
F major
G major

And today, you added the 6-chord to the mix:

C major
D minor (substitute major)
F major
G major
A minor

Practice these and tell me how you like em!

Until next time

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