>NOTE: To learn ALL the techniques and strategies to
playing chords and patterns in songs, go here:

http://www.hearandplay.com/products

After last week’s e-mail, I received the most replies ever.
Here’s another one I think will really help you (VERY IMPORTANT
STRATEGIES BELOW).It’s from a gentleman named Mark.

***Comment From Mark H.***

Hi Jermaine,

Last week’s e-mail was totally awesome! This number system
stuff is quite new to me but you’ve totally made it plain. You
certainly have a knack for breaking stuff down and I want to
thank you for taking the time to do this.

On one of your blog posts, you talked about primary and
secondary chords. You also talked about how each tone of the
scale has its own chord that is usually played.

I’m having a hard time remember all these chords and where they
go. Let’s not even talk about all 12 keys because I can’t
remember even one key. Please help!

Mark H Dallas, TX

>>> My Comments and explanations back to Mark (read closely as
you can get a lot out of what I had to say to him):

Hey Mark,

Appreciate your positive feedback!

I have a really easy way for you to remember all the primary
and secondary chords and it won’t take that long to master it.

All it takes is for you to know your major chords. Like I
teach musicians all the time, you can play both minor scales and
minor chords by understanding major chords and their
relationships to minor chords.

Don’t worry, I’ll explain…

Since you mentioned primary and secondary chords, let me
touch on those for a minute.

Every major key has what we call primary and secondary
chords. The primary chords of any given key are the 1st, 4th,
and 5th chords. These numbers come from the scale. In the key of
C, C is the 1st tone of the scale, D is the 2nd tone of the
scale, E is the 3rd tone, and so forth.

So the 1st, 4th, and 5th chords of the key of C major are C,
F, and G (in that order). They are always major chords. These
chords will occur in music the most. The 1st chord of the scale
is the key that you’re in so it’s always going to feel like
“home.” This chord will begin and end your songs. When a
non-musical audience hears the 1-chord, they know to clap
because the song feels at rest… at home… at peace. It’s the
end and they don’t have to be musically-inclined to know that.

The 4th chord of the scale, the next primary chord, is like
being away from home but at a close relative’s house. It’s ‘home
away from home.’ There is a very strong connection between the
1st tone (real home) and the 4th tone (home away from home).
That’s why countless songs go from “the 1 to the 4.” It’s one of
the MOST POPULAR movements in music, hands down.

So, if the 1 is ‘being at home’ and the 4 is being ‘away from
home,’ then the 5 is ‘coming back home.’ The 5 has a strong
connection and tendency to lead back home to the 1st chord. When
you tell your kids to get in the car because we have to go home,
that’s the 5 coming home to the 1 in music.

So now that you have a good understanding of the primary
chords (1, 4, 5), the secondary chords are EVERYTHING ELSE…

That literally leaves the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th tones of
the scale. And the good news is three of those are simple minor
chords that can be played by understanding the three primary
major chords we just covered.

Let’s go to the key of C major:

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

You already know that C major, F major, and G major are
primary chords.

But what you probably don’t know is that the three minor
secondary chords are relatives to the primary chords. They are
like sisters and brothers, if you will.

(Now this is like 5 chapters of a music theory book covered
in one e-mail but let’s go for it.)

Every major key has what you call a relative minor. In other
words, every major key has a minor key that “pairs” with it.
This minor key has the same notes in its scale as the major
key… it has the same sharps and flats as well.

You can pretty much call them brother-sister scales. One
being major and one being minor. They share EVERYTHING.

For C major, that relative minor is ‘A minor.’

Now before we delve a little deeper into this, let’s look at
the C major and A minor scales:

C major

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

A minor

A B C D E F G A
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Do they use different notes or the same notes?

Answer: same notes

Do they both have the same number of flats and sharps?

Answer: Yes, because C has no flats/sharps and A minor has
no flats/sharps.

They are relatives, that’s why! They are closely related. They
share the same house, sort of!

Every major scale has one of these. In fact, you can create the
“A minor” scale just by understanding the C major scale.

Here’s what you do:

(I started to make bullet points but this is too simple so I’ll
just say it)…

Just go to the 6th tone of your major scale. That’s it. Just
play your major scale starting on the 6th tone until you get
back to that same 6th tone.

C major

C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Ok, this is the C major scale. I’m just going up an extra
octave with this example (that’s why you see double the notes).

What tone is the 6th tone?

Answer: A

So what do you do?

Answer: Play this same scale without changing ANY notes from A
to A. Like this: A B C D E F G A

What does that give you?

Answer: The “A minor scale”

Bam! You’re done! Now you know how to play the “A minor” scale.
And the best part is that you don’t have to remember any new
scales. You can “piggy back” off what you already know.

That’s why it’s important to know the number system because
shorctus like this are EVERYWHERE. This is what I cover in my
Starter 702 course. If I were you, I’d pick it up. It’s only $17
bucks.

http://www.hearandplay.com/playbyear.html

So now let’s go back to this whole ‘primary and secondary chord’
stuff.

Basically, just how you learned the “A minor” scale from
knowing your C major scale, you can do the same with CHORDS.

You just take a C major chord (C+E+G) and put “A” on your bass
and you’ve got yourself an “A minor 7″ chord. How cool is that?

Just how you piggy-backed on the C scale to play the “A” minor
scale, you do the same to play the A minor 7 chord. Crazy huh?

You can do this with any major chord.

F major chord = F+A+C
6th tone of F major = D

Playing D on your left hand as the bass and F+A+C on your right
hand creates a D minor 7 chord.

G major chord = G+B+D
6th tone of G major = E (if you were in the key of G, this
would be the 6th tone — gotta know your scales and numbers
like we talked about in my last e-mail).

Playing E on your left hand as the bass and G+B+D on your right
hand creates an E minor 7 chord.

It’s simple. So if you know all 12 major chords, now you should
easily know all 12 minor chords by doing this easy exercise.

The magic number in this case is “6.”

Note: There are magic numbers for other stuff too. But for minor
relationships, it’s 6. See my course below for details.

So if C major, F major, and G major are the primary chords of
the key of C, then you can apply this same idea to learn your
minor secondary chords.

1st, 4th, and 5th = primary chords

2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th = secondary chords

And as you now know, the primary chords help you to play the
secondary chords.

2nd tone = D… but all you gotta do is play an F major chord
over D to play a D minor 7 chord. Easy!

3rd tone = E… but all you gotta do is play a G major chord
over E to play an E minor 7 chord. Even easier!

6th tone = A… but all you gotta do is play a C major chord
over A to play an A minor 7 chord. Bam!

So in other words…

The 1st and 6th tones pair up.
The 2nd and 4th tones pair up.
The 3rd and 5th tones pair up.

That takes care of EVERY tone of the scale pretty much. The
only one left is the 7th tone of the scale. That won’t be a
major or minor chord… it’s a diminished or half-diminished
chord depending on whether you’re going to use 3 or 4 notes to
play it. But unfortunately, I’ve spent way too much time on this
and won’t have enough time to cover it.

However, check out this very affordable course to get the low
down on all this…

To learn other unique techniques and strategies you can use
to master chords and take your playing to the next level, go to
the link below. I recommend either my 300-pg course or my
Starter 702 audio course (or BOTH). The Starter 702 course is
cheap… a steal… $17 bucks and covers much of what I’ve
talked about here… but with my VOICE and piano explaining
everything. If you’re serious, check it out:

http://www.hearandplay.com/playbyear.html

If you were a bit helped by the words I’ve written here,
then this audio course will REALLY be helpful because you’ll
hear me talking about all this stuff for 2 whole hours,
reinforcing every little concept over and over. You’ll like it.

Talk soon,

Jermaine

Popularity: 10% [?]

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed for regular updates. If you'd rather subscribe by e-mail, click here. Thanks for visiting.

I don’t normally do this but I’ve found an awesome explanation of primary chords and I’d like to share it with you.

You can find it by clicking here.

If you’ve ever wondered why they’re called “primary chords” and what makes them so special, this article will definitely shed some light on the subject.

Until next time —

Popularity: 64% [?]

I don’t normally do this but I’ve found an awesome explanation of primary chords and I’d like to share it with you.

You can find it by clicking here.

If you’ve ever wondered why they’re called “primary chords” and what makes them so special, this article will definitely shed some light on the subject.

Until next time —

Popularity: 31% [?]

I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails about primary and secondary chords so I wanted to take this time to explain them.

Every key has what we call “primary” chords and “secondary” chords.

You may already know the primary chords…

They’re simply the 1, 4, and 5 tones of any scale.

For example, in the key of C major:

• The first tone of the scale is C
• The fourth tone of the scale is F
• The fifth tone of the scale is G

We simply play major chords on each of these tones. Bam! There’s your primary chords.

The secondary chords are all the other ones.

That leaves the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th tones of the scale.

(This post can technically be over but I want to go a little further in explaining secondary chords).

Every major key has a relative minor key. I talk about relative minors in this past post.

Like in C major, the relative minor is “A.” It’s basically the 6th tone of the scale (or you can count backwards two scale tones… “C > B > A”).

I said all that to say this…

3 of the 4 secondary chords are basically relative minors of the primary chords. Let me break it down…

We already know that “A” is the relative minor (6th tone) of C major so that takes care of the C major primary chord.

What is the relative minor of F major? It’s D!

And the relative minor of G major? It’s E!

C > A
F > D
G > E

Like I said above, you can think of this as basically 2 scale tones down from any primary chord.

Take C major for example…

1. Go down two scale tones — B is one, A is two.
2. “A” is the relative minor.

F major…

1. Go down two scale tones — E is one, D is two.
2. “D” is the relative minor.

G major…

1. Go down two scale tones (and I’m still referring to the C major scale since we’re talking about primary chords from the C major scale but even if you used the G major scale, you’d arrive at the same tone).
2. “E” is the relative minor.

Why is this important?

Relative minors and majors have a very strong connection. They share the same key signature. They have the same notes in their scales. Heck, their chords are pretty much the same.

Want me to prove it to you?

So what does all this mean?

Simply put, whenever you want to make things more interesting, throw in the right secondary chords!

Yes, most songs can be played with just primary chords (the “1,” “4,” and “5″). That’s true!

But if you want to get more interesting, you start throwing in these secondary chords.

And now that you know how the secondary chords relate to the primary chords, you can start substituting certain chords for others (***hint hint***).

Until next time —

Popularity: 30% [?]

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,

Popularity: 26% [?]

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,

Popularity: 25% [?]

(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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Yesterday, we talked about the primary chords of a scale.

We established that the 1, 4 and 5 are the most important degrees of any scale and that you can pretty much play tons of songs with these chords.

In fact, you can play most songs with just these chords.

(Your songs may sound basic but the point is that you can do it!)

But now, I want to take it a step further and show you how to get those other tones of the scale working for you.

Let’s turn back to the C major scale…

C major

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

(Of course, we’ve numbered our scale because this is of no use if we don’t think universally… and numbers allow us to apply this to any key later on so get used to thinking in terms of numbers).

As you know, the primary chords are on the 1st, 4th, and 5th degrees:

C F G
1 4 5

But now, let’s take it a step further.

Music loves to move in fourths and fifths.

In fact, the interval between “C” and “F” is a fourth (”perfect fourth,” specifically).

And the interval between “C” and “G” is a fifth.

To find out what interval you’re working with, count the number of alphabet letters encompassed in the interval (that includes the starting and ending notes).

So, between C and F, there is C - D - E - F. Four alphabet letters means this is a fourth interval.

Note: Don’t mix up alphabet letters and notes. When you count white and black keys, there are much more than four notes in this interval. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re solely talking about alphabet letters and not even concerned with anything else.

How many alphabet letters are in between C and G?

Well, let’s see…

C - D - E - F - G

Five! That’s why this is a fifth interval. Get it?

For this lesson, we’re only going to focus on fourths as they are much more common than fifths in popular chord progressions.

See this circle?

We’re going to focus on going counter-clockwise. That is, the direction from C to F to Bb and so on.

These are fourths. Plain and simple.

If you write them out, it’ll look like this:

Memorize this! This is the direction most songs flow in.

And this is what I want to use to help you add flavor to your primary chords.

Question…

What are the primary chords of C?
(This is easy. You already know the answer because it’s at the top of this page).

Another question…

Where do these primary chords lie on the circle?

Bingo! They are neighbors!

C is right in the middle. To its left is F and to the right is G.

That means they have a very close relationship. This circle isn’t just a pretty way to organize keys… it’s a circle of close relationships and the closer notes are arranged on this circle, the stronger they pull and work with each other.

Remember I said that music usually flows in fourths and that going counter-clockwise around the circle will give you fourths?

Well, think about it. In yesterday’s, lesson, I told you that Gmaj has a very strong pull to Cmaj. Now, notice where G is on the circle. It’s to the right of C (as we just learned) and comes right before it, if you’re moving counter-clockwise around the circle.

And pretty much the whole circle works that way.

They key directly to the right side is what pulls the strongest to its neighbor on the left.

So G pulls strong to C.

C pulls strong to F.

F pulls strong to Bb.

Bb pulls strong to Eb.

E pulls strong to A on the other side of the circle.

D pulls strong to G.

Hmm, D pulls strong to G…

(And it works the other way around too. G pulls strong to D as well. But for this lesson, we’re focusing on fourths and the counter-clockwise direction of the circle because this is more common in chord progressions).

I’ve got an idea.

Why don’t we take a song from yesterday and see if we can pull to any of the Gmaj chords by first using some type of D chord?

But first, let’s make sure we talk about the numbers behind this…

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

C F G
1 4 5

Now, we’ve introduced “D.”

C D F G
1 2 4 5

So basically, the “2″ leads strongly to the “5.” (Remember that rule).

In other words, if I’m playing a song only with primary chords and I want to start venturing outside my comfort zone, I can first try out a chord on the “2″ and there is a high probability that it will work to lead to the “5.”

If the circle says it, then it’s right! :)

So let’s take a song from yesterday and see what happens.

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

(Note: It sounds better to play the chord on “ma-zing” rather than on the first syllable, “A”)

“Sweet the”
F major ~~
(F + A + C)

“Sound.”
C major ~
(C + E + G)

“That saved a wretch like”
C major ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(C + E + G)

“Me”
G major
(G + B + D)

Now what we can do is slip a 2-chord before the G major.

So that means it should come on:

“wretch like”

(…your ear should have told you that if there should be a new chord added, the best place would be here).

Now, normally the 2-chord is minor. You’d have to go to past lessons to get the scoop on that because this post will be super long if I explain each tone and chord of the major scale.

So try minor there first.

See how it sounds to your ear.

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

“wretch like”
D minor ~~~
(D + F + A)

“Me”
G major
(G + B + D)

Now, the D minor can surely work there but if it were me, I’d keep fishing for a closer match on this 2-chord.

So let’s try D major…

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

“wretch like”
D major ~~~
(D + F# + A)

“Me”
G major
(G + B + D)

Sounds much better doesn’t it!?!

I know this is a beginner post but keeping the melody on top is very important.

And the melody on “wretch” is the note, “E.”

But “E” isn’t in the D major chord so there are two ways you can do this to spice up your chord movement.

1) Try to add “E” to the chord as the highest note

OR…

2) Try to rearrange chord so that you can add “E” on top.

Right now, adding E on top of “D + F# + A” is kinda hard.

But that’s where possibility #2 comes in.

What if we invert this D major chord so that D is on top? Again, I can’t really talk about inversions here or this post will be super long. Just use the search box up top to search for posts that talk about inversions and you’ll be caught up to speed!

So inverting the D major chord to “F# + A + D” (aka - “first inversion”) allows us to put an “E” right on top:

F# + A + D + E

Now, I personally don’t like the sound the “D” and “E” make up top and since I’d most likely be playing “D” on my bass (in the left hand), I’m going to take it out.

That leaves me with “F# + A + E” over “D” bass.

You wanna know what chord you’re playing here?

D major (add 9)
(F# + A + E on right hand / D on bass)

That’s not bad for a beginning lesson!

But do you see how easy it is to naturally start playing more complex chords? One thing leads to another… one requirement leads to the next and before you know it, your ear has taken you to something totally different!

In fact, you can add a C in there and make this a D dominant ninth chord (”D9″ for short).

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

The following is Amazing Grace with the added 2-chord and other inversions to keep the melody on top. Pay close attention to the order of notes in each chord as I’ve made some changes:

“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)

(Unless otherwise noted, you can play these chords on your right hand and you can play the keynotes of the chords as the bass notes on your left. Basically, C major means “C on left” and “C+E+G on right.” Or you can play the chords on your left and pick out the melody and play it on your right hand. Try both ways and see what you like best.)

So there you have it! Without getting too deep (because there’s always tomorrow… and the next day… and the next day), we’ve learned how to start using other tones of the scale to lead us to our primary chords.

Until next time!

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For the last week or so, we’ve gotten deeper and deeper into minor scales.

From the natural minor scale to the harmonic and melodic minor scales, we’ve covered a lot.

We even delved into the corresponding chords that come from these scales (I’ll continue with the triads and sevenths of the melodic minor shortly).

Today, though, I want to slow down and go the other direction.

I wanna talk to my straight beginners in this post! I want to give you guys some hope that if you know just two chords, you can actually sit around the piano or keyboard and have fun with your kids.

And if you don’t know already, those two chords are the 1-chord and the 5-chord.

Let me briefly explain…

Every major key can be looked at using numbers.

For example, the C major scale:

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

(For my newbies… these are played separately, one after the other.)

But the scale has a ton of other usages.

And I’ll help you to understand one of them today.

See those numbers?

If you take the 1st, 4th, and 5th tones out of this scale, you’d get:

C F G
1 4 5

And what we do is play major chords on each of these tones:

C major = C + E + G
F major = F + A + C
G major = G + B + D

(For my new readers, when you see me using the plus + sign to connect notes, that means to play them all together. Just my own way of breaking up each note of a chord. So the “C + E + G” would mean to sound all three of those notes at the same time, creating a C major chord. If you don’t know your major chords, click here).

Moving on…

These are what we call “primary chords.”

These chords will appear the most in your songs. In fact, most songs could be written with JUST these chords.

Composers use other tones of the scale to make the music more interesting. For example, I could have a progression that just goes from C major to G major and that would be fine. But if I wanted to add more variety, I’d employ maybe the 2nd tone of the scale to push me to the G major chord (…but that’s another lesson).

Now, primary chords are in every key. Just take the 1st, 4th, and 5th tones of any major scale and there you have it, the primary chords of that key.

So you’ve got three chords and they’re found in just about every song.

Let’s explore them:

The 1-chord

The 1-chord is basically the same as the title of your major scale and key signature. If you’re in the key of C, obviously the first tone of the scale is C — therefore, the first chord is C major (since primary triads are major chords). This chord is most likely to begin your songs. It’s also most likely to end your songs. Even in the middle of songs when they tend to go back to the beginning (like the second half of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”), 1-chords are used. So when you feel like the song is at a permanent “home base” or even a temporary one (as in the middle of the song), most likely, you’re looking for the 1-chord… in this case, C major.

The 4-chord

The 4-chord usually comes right after the 1-chord. The 1-chord finds itself always progressing to the 4-chord. It doesn’t happen all the time (of course) but it’s pretty frequent. And like I said above, if the composer doesn’t choose to go directly from the 1-chord (C major) to the 4-chord (F major), she’s probably using other tones of the scale that will eventually lead to the 4-chord.

An example of this is in the beginning of “Amazing Grace.”

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

“Sweet the”
F major ~~
(F + A + C)

“Sound.”
C major ~
(C + E + G)

“That saved a wretch like”
C major ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(C + E + G)

“Me”
_______________

(What chord might you guess here?)

You see how that works? We basically played the whole beginning part of Amazing grace with just the 1 and 4-chords. And where I left you off, the 5-chord would have come next…

The 5-chord

The 5-chord tends to come in the middle of the song or verse. It’s that thing that connects you back to the 1-chord. But if you think about it, the 1-chord usually comes in the beginning of a song or at the end of the song (or in the middle of the song when it appears to have start all over). So, if that’s the case, the 5-chord is that feeling that tells you the song is about to end or about to go back to the beginning.

Don’t you feel that in the middle of Amazing Grace?

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

“Sweet the”
F major ~~
(F + A + C)

“Sound.”
C major ~
(C + E + G)

“That saved a wretch like”
C major ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(C + E + G)

“Me”
G major ~~~
(G + B + D)

When you sing “me,” that is the the middle area I’m talking about. That is the part that lets you know something is about to repeat.

That is where the 5-chord is best used. Of course at the end of songs too.

But you know what?

Most songs you can play with just the 1 and 5 chords. Here’s an example:

“Mary Had A Little Lamb”

“Ma-ry had a lit-tle lamb”
C major ~~~~~~~~
(C+E+G)

“Lit-tle lamb”
G major ~~~~~~~~
(G+B+D)

“Lit-tle lamb”
C major
(C+E+G)

“Ma-ry had a lit-tle lamb, her”
C major ~~~~~~~~
(C+E+G)

“Fleece was white as”
G major ~~~~~~~~
(G+B+D)

“Snow”
C major
(C+E+G)

“The Wheels On The Bus”

“The”
G major (either you can play a G major here or you can play no chord here and come in on “wheels”).

“Wheels on the bus go round and round”
C major ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Round and round”
G major ~~~~

“Round and round. The”
C major ~~~~
(note: you can play a Gmaj chord on “the” if you want or you can leave it alone)

“Wheels on the bus go round and round”
C major ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“All through the”
G major ~~~

“Town”
C major

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Until next time!

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