Today’s post will be fun because I’m going to show some of my newbies how to play something you hear all the time.

From Mariah Carey to Fred Hammond and Andre Crouch, every artist has had their share of the slow “ballad” — and more specifically, the type that simple moves down the scale, note for note.

Here are some samples just so you know what I’m talking about…

Do you hear the similarities?

(Now, I’m not talking about all the details and melodies — I’m talking about the primary movements of the choruses of each song. They are all moving in a downward, stepwise motion, scale tone for scale tone — and that’s what I want to show you how to play today… with just TWO chords!)

And because I’ve limited this lesson to only two chords, it may not be suitable for my experienced readers. However, sit back and you just may pick up something here or there.

Can you guess the two chords I’m talking about?

If you even thought about the 1-chord and 5-chord, congratulations! (In fact, I did a lesson not too long ago that stressed playing songs with only the 1 and 5-chords. You can check it out here.)

And, of course, when I say “1″ and “5-chord,” I’m grabbing those numbers straight from the major scale.

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

1 = C
5 = G

And to make it even simpler, we’ll only play major triads on those tones…

1-chord = C major (C + E + G)
5-chord = G major (G + B + D)

But as you know from past lessons, these chords are too far from each other so we’re going to invert (change the way) we play our second chord so that it connects to our first chord more smoothly.

Since these chords have a note in common (”G”), I want to play the common note with the same finger. But as you can see, one “G” is on top (C major triad) and one “G” is on the bottom (G major triad). So what I’ll do is invert my G major triad so that “G” is on top! Super simple!

5-chord (1st inversion) = G major (B + D + G)

So now we have G on top, just like we want it! That gives us two chords that are pretty close to each other:

1-chord = C major (C + E + G)
5-chord = G major (B + D + G)

What if I told you these EXACT two chords played this EXACT same way could allow you to play the ballads sampled at the top of this lesson? Would you be excited?

Well, first off…

I don’t want to mislead you. By no means will these two chords, alone, have you sounding like a seasoned professional. And you will have to learn them in the other keys because the samples above are not in C major. But you will have a clear understanding of how these slow ballads are created — what they’re made of… and that’s important!

And for these 3 songs included here, there are hundreds more that follow this same movement. It doesn’t even take a musician to hear the movements. Just listen to the three recordings above until you hear what I’m talking about. Yes, they are in different keys! Yes, the melodies are different! But that’s not what I’m talking about — I’m talking about the movement of the chords… how close they are… how the bass is moving. This is what you want to key in on.

But back to the two chords…

The first thing you want to do is get good at alternating between the two chords.

1-chord = C major (C + E + G)
5-chord = G major (B + D + G)

Now, play this in a nice, slow “ballad-style” rhythm (…all I’m doing is alternating between each chord and stopping after the 8th change).

[Set 1]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G)
5-chord = G major (B + D + G)

[Set 2]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G)
5-chord = G major (B + D + G)

[Set 3]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G)
5-chord = G major (B + D + G)

[Set 4]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G)
5-chord = G major (B + D + G)

*To make things easier, I’m calling each pair of chords a “set.” So, there are 4 sets for a total of 8 chords. Still following me?

Now, here’s the best part…

You know your C major scale, right?

Do you know it backwards?

C major (downward)
C B A G F E D C

Here’s the great news. All you’ll do is give each one of the chords above one of these bass notes in your left hand. This will pretty much be the pattern until the last chord. Don’t worry, I’ll show you what to do for the last chord when we get there.

So basically, your right hand is simply alternating between a C major and G major chord and your left hand is playing the C major scale backwards (or what we call moving in a “stepwise” motion).

*Play the chord with your right hand and play the single bass with your left hand.

[Set 1]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G) *** Bass: C
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: B

[Set 2]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G) *** Bass: A
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: G

[Set 3]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G) *** Bass: F
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: E

[Set 4]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G) *** Bass: D
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) ????????????????

Wow! You’re playing ballads and all you had to learn was two chords!

The last bass note is easy. We’re not quite ready to go back to “C” on our bass. We will, but we must play another bass note first.

I don’t have much time to talk about why this is, but the 5-chord will almost always take you back to your 1-chord. It has a very strong pull back to the 1-chord. It signals to our ears that we are returning back “home.” Even non-musicians hear a good 5-chord and know a song is either about to end or return back to the beginning.

And it’s no surprise that the very last chord is a 5-chord (B + D + G). All we have to do is play the 5-bass with it and this will complete one cycle of our ballad.

So here’s the entire ballad with the last chord on “G” bass:

*Play the chord with your right hand and play the single bass with your left hand.

[Set 1]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G) *** Bass: C
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: B

[Set 2]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G) *** Bass: A
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: G

[Set 3]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G) *** Bass: F
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: E

[Set 4]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G) *** Bass: D
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: G

*This takes us perfectly to the beginning, where we start all over with our C major (1-chord).

There you have it! A ballad with two chords..

In future lessons, I’ll show you how to spice up this ballad by adding “other” chords. Similar to prior lessons, you’ll see how a song is created from the most basic patterns and spiced up using other chords of the scale.

For now, enjoy playing this and let me know how you’re doing!

Until next time —

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Ok, so you’ve probably heard terms like “2-5-1 chord progression,” “2-5-1 progression,” or just “2-5-1″ for short.

These are just ways to describe chords going from one to the other… simple!

Here’s a little poem I made up.

Notes create scales,
scales create chords,
chords create progressions,
progressions create songs.

I know, I know… it doesn’t rhyme but it explains music in 4 lines.

Basically, what it’s saying is the 12 unique tones on the piano create organized scales (there’s 12 of them, too, for every tone of the piano).

These scales define “major keys.” When you hear someone singing, they HAVE to be singing in one of these 12 keys.

If they are like some of the rejects on early American Idol episodes, they may be in two major keys, wavering from one to the other without knowing it (…that’s why they are rejects). At any given time, though, you can only be in one key… if the singer is legit.

Once you know scales, there are easy formulas to play chords. I’ve made tons of prior posts on chords.

While scales are tones played one after the other, chords are three or more tones sounded at the same time.

One leads to the next as chord progressions are basically a series of chords going from one to the other… basically what you hear when you’re listening to your favorite band. You’re hearing chords organized into progressions.

And that’s what this post talks about… the third line in my little poem:

Notes create scales,
scales create chords,
chords create progressions,
progressions create songs.

So where do the numbers come from?

Good question.

They actually come from scales.

Every scale can be thought of in terms of numbers.

Like this, a “C major” scale:

C D E F G A B C

If you want to be really good at understanding all 12 keys (so that you’re not one of those musicians who can only play in one key), then you’ll want to think of this same scale in terms of numbers:

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

Not only do these numbers let you create chords immediately (”scales create chords”), but they also allow you to play progressions pretty easily.

First, the chords.

If you want to play a major chord, here’s the formula:

1 + 3 + 5

Bam! Easy! You don’t have to know all that deep theory or even about intervals to create chords from scales. You just need to know the formula. Take any 1st tone, 3rd tone, and 5th tone — and play them together and there’s your major chord.

In C major, for example, the 1, 3, and 5 are “C,” “E,” and “G.” Just play them together and that’s a C major chord. (All I did was take the 1st, 3rd, and the 5th tones of the C major scale above and play them together… it’s that simple!)

The good news is that there are easy formulas like that for just about every type of chord, but that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about progressions.

“2-5-1″

Basically, the “2″ is the second tone of the scale. The “5″ is the fifth tone of the scale. And the “1″ is ________________ (well, you know the rest).

But the only difference is, unlike the chords where you would take the 2, 5, and 1 — and play them together… this time, you’re actually forming separate chords on each one of those tones and leading from one to the other.

So some kind of chord built on the second tone of the scale “PROGRESSES” to some type of chord built on the 5th tone of the scale, which ends by progressing to some type of chord that’s built on the 1st tone of the scale.

That’s how progressions work.

Now, I could get deeper but I won’t. There’s plenty of lessons on the chords that go with every tone of the scale. But just know this… every tone has a “favorite” chord that usually goes with it.

The first tone is usually a major chord. It CAN be something different but usually it’s some kind of major chord (I say “some kind” because you can have a very basic major chord all the way up to a fancy “major 13″ chord).

The second tone of the scale is usually a minor chord. So that “2″ in the “2-5-1″ is usually minor.

The fifth tone of the scale is usually a major chord as well. Now, as we get more fancy, it can also be a dominant chord but let’s keep it simple.

So we have a major chord on the 1st tone, a minor chord on the 2nd tone, and a major chord on the 5th tone.

That means our 2-5-1 looks something like this:

2minor > 5major > 1major

You get that?

So now… because we’re dealing with numbers (the universal language), we can apply this chord progression to any key.

If we want to play this in C major, we just figure out the 2nd, 5th, and 1st tone of C major and we’re ready to fill in the gaps:

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

The 2nd tone is: ___________
The 5th tone is: ___________
The 1st tone is: ___________

Therefore, the 2-5-1 progression in C major is:

___minor > ___major > ___major

You should have:

Dminor > Gmajor > Cmajor

Putting it all together

Ok, so how can I get really good at playing in all 12 keys without even having to think about it? How can I just play that same 2-5-1 chord progression in any key I want? Whether C major, or F major or Ab major… how can I get to that level Jermaine?

Good questions…

The answer is…

MASTERING THE NUMBERS.

See, the chord part is easy. If you know the “2″ will always have a minor chord, the “5″ will always have a major chord, and the “1″ will always have a major chord, then all you have to know is all 12 major and minor chords and you’re good to go.

The hard part is knowing what the 2 of Ab major is without even having to think about it. Or the 5 of B major without blinking an eye. Or the 1 of C major (…now you have to be pretty slow not to know the “1″ because the “1″ is the first tone of the scale… in other words the title of the scale you’re playing… hehe). C major scale… the 1 is “C,” which is in the title.

So with that said, your biggest battles are going to be knowing the “2s” and “5s” of every key.

The best thing to do is to follow this circle of fifths pattern below, calling out the 2 of every key as you move clockwise (or counter-clockwise) around the circle.

I personally like to move counter-clockwise because that is the direction music moves in. In fact, moving counter-clockwise gives you a 2-5-1 chord progression. Check out this chart below:

Notice that C is at the top (12 o clock). And if you move to where 11 o clock would be, which is F, and then move again to Bb… and stop for a moment to think about it, you’ll notice that “C > F > Bb” is a “2-5-1″ in the key of Bb major.

So every 3 neighboring notes on the circle of fifths chart going counter-clockwise is a 2-5-1 in the last key of the group.

(If you study the circle of fifths, you’ll be blown away at how much there is to learn from this simple little circle.)

But that’s a lesson in and of itself.

Here’s the exercise I want you to do though:

1) First you’ll start off by trying to master your “2s” of every key.
2) Starting at C, call out the “2nd” tone of C as fast as you can.
3) You can either go clockwise or counter-clockwise. If you go my direction (counter-clockwise), then the next key will be F. Call out the 2nd tone of F as fast as you can.
4) Proceed to do this around the entire circle.
5) Use a stopwatch to figure out how long it took you to call out the “2s” of all 12 keys. If you don’t have one, check out my online stopwatch tool.

Then start all over and do the same thing for the “5s” of every key.

To be honest, you should be doing it for every tone of the scale. You should be doing it for 2 thru 7. Don’t worry about doing it for the 1st tone of the scale as you have to be pretty slow not to know that C is the first tone of the C major scale, lol.

So that’s how you get good at knowing what a “2-5-1″ is in the key of “B” without thinking about it. It comes down to knowing the numbers.

But you don’t have to be a math whiz! You just have to be committed to knowing your keys and doing these exercises will have you on your way!

If you’re really serious, check out my home study course. It covers this kind of stuff in depth.

Use the comment form below to talk back to me. If you reading this post via e-mail or rss reader, click on to the site to leave a comment below.

How long did it take you to call out your “2s” and “5s” in each key?

What do you find most challenging about mastering each key?

Do you like to go clockwise around the circle or counter-clockwise?

Hate numbers? lol

Like this lesson? Hate this lesson?

See ya next time!

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Let me start by saying that you’ll be shocked to learn that playing more contemporary does not involve making up “new” chords. In fact, in GospelKeys X “Urban and Contemporary Worship,” one of the most commonly mentioned chords is the “major seventh” chord.

Now, don’t get me wrong…

You’ve probably played a major seventh chord time and time again. And you’ll probably agree that after a while, it just becomes a normal chord — if you’re using it redundantly (the same way over and over).

Most musicians, however, fail to realize the power of the “major seventh” chord when used with other chords. In other words, learning how to play two chords at the same time. It may take some getting used to but after a week, any musician should be able to add this to their playing. It is very powerful. Let me explain…

First, let’s cover the major seventh chord.

1) Take any major scale

2) Play the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th tone to create a major seventh chord

3) Invert the chord to create what I call the “next door” effect.

… so taking each step above, here’s how to form an Ab major seventh chord (Abmaj7):

1) The Ab major scale is:

Ab Bb C Db Eb F G Ab (played separately of course).

2) The 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th tones from the scale above are:

Ab C Eb G (played together as a chord).

3) Since all major seventh chords include the 1st and 7th tones, these notes, if played right next to each other will create what I call the “next door” effect. In order to do this, take the chord above (Ab C Eb G) and invert it so that that Ab and C are at the top of the chord rather than the bottom:

Eb G Ab C (… notice that the Ab and C are now on the other side of the chord).

The “G” and “Ab” in the middle appear right next to each other on the piano. That is what we call the “next door” effect and produces a far more contemporary and modern sound than playing the Abmaj7 chord opened like in the previous example. GospelKeys X “Urban and Contemporary Worship” goes into more detail about this technique, but for now, we have enough information to understand this concept.

Now… let’s do the same thing for the Db major seventh chord (Dbmaj7):

1) The Db major scale is:

Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb C Db (played separately).

2) The 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th tones from the scale above are:

Db F Ab C (played together).

3) To create the “next door” contemporary feel that GospelKeys X talks about, we want to move the “Db” and “F” from the bottom and put them on the top. The Dbmaj7 chord inverted now looks like this:

Ab C Db F

So now we have two maj7 chords:

Abmaj7 and Dbmaj7

Now, we will turn these two chords into a nice urban movement.

Let’s start with the Dbmaj7 chord (Ab C Db F). We will use that over a Bb bass on the left hand. Theoretically, this makes the chord a Bbmin9. If you don’t know your minor 9th chords, refer to chapter 14 of the 300-pg course.

For the Abmaj7 chord (Eb G Ab C), we will play that over an F bass on the left hand. This is also called an Fmin9 (because of the addition of the left hand “F” on the bass). So another “lesson” inside of this lesson is:

“Major chords combined with certain left hand bass notes also create minor chords.”

So play each of the chords below giving four counts to each:

Bb bass on the left /// Ab + C + Db + F on the right hand.

F bass /// Eb + G + Ab + C on the right hand.

Simply go back and forth between these two chords. This by itself characterizes the urban feel.

But it hardly ends here. This is just the foundation. We’re going to totally change the chords above to create an even more “urban and contemporary” sound.

As your piano playing becomes more sophisticated, you’re going to start playing chords on your left hand. So what we’re going to do now is switch what we were formally playing on the right hand to our other hand.

You’ll see this technique talked about in depth in GospelKeys X “Urban and Contemporary Worship.” Here’s a taste of it below:

Let’s deal with the Dbmaj7 chord first.

Play this on your left hand:

Ab C Db F

Now, to complement this chord, on the right hand, let’s play a regular “Ab” major chord in the second inversion. If you don’t know what “inversions” are, click here.

Ab maj (second inversion): Eb Ab C

Now, here’s something to keep in mind…

You don’t want to be playing your left hand chord too low on the piano or else it will sound distorted. Play your left hand just high enough to create a nice sounding chord. The “Eb Ab C” chord on your right might overlap with your left hand. This is alright. With “Urban and Contemporary Worship,” you’ll do crazy things like this but you’ll produce crazily “modern” sounds… trust me.

So now, you’re playing this:

Left: Ab C Db F Right: Eb Ab C

(If the left hand is bothering you, feel free to leave out the “F”). Keep in mind that taking it out will lessen the “phat-ness” of the sound, but if you are having trouble playing four fingers in your left hand to start, this would be the note to leave out.

We will do the same thing for the second chord. In our left hand, let’s play the Abmaj7 we’d normally play in our right hand.

Left: Eb G Ab C

On our right hand, let’s layer an Eb chord on top of it:

Right: Bb Eb G (don’t be fooled by the Bb on the bottom because this is an Eb maj chord in second inversion).

So, the whole chord is:

Left: Eb G Ab C Right: Bb Eb G

Now play both chords together, repeating back and forth (four counts each).

#1: Left: Ab C Db F Right: Eb Ab C

#2: Left: Eb G Ab C Right: Bb Eb G

Now this sounds a lot better than the former progression. But we’re still not done! In GospelKeys X “Urban and Contemporary Worship,” our aim is to make you sound as modern and contemporary as possible.

Let’s keep going…

Now, going back and forth between the two chords above sounds good. But it gets boring after a while so you’ll want to include passing chords in the progression above.

We will include two passing chords between chord #1 and chord #2 above. These passing chords will further “urbanize” and “contemporize” our chord movement.

Tritones are two-note chords used commonly in contemporary music. I don’t have room in this online classroom to explain them in depth but have discussed them in past newsletters. Feel free to visit the newsletter archives to read about them.

Ok… Ok… I’ll talk about them here just for a little while:

Tritones consist of diminished fifth intervals.

You can also determine the distance of a tritone by simply counting three whole steps up from any note. Thus, the name “tritone.” Counting “C to D” (1), “D to E” (2), and “E to Gb” (3) would be an example. So the beginning and end (C and Gb) is a “tritone.” Now back to the diminished fifth interval concept…

A diminished fifth interval is just what it sounds like. A fifth interval decreased by one-half step. For example a fifth interval is: C to G. To make this same interval a diminished fifth, simply lower the G to Gb.

Now you have: C + Gb. That’s an example of a tritone. So whether you want to use the “diminished fifth” technique or the “3 whole steps” technique, both ways will help you to form tritones.

There are six main tritones:

C + Gb (or Gb + C)

Db + G (or G + Db)

D + Ab (or Ab + D)

Eb + A (or A + Eb)

E + Bb (or Bb + E)

F + B (or B + F)

* Don’t forget these little chords. They are extremely important when it comes to playing contemporary-styled music.

It is common to move from one tritone to another tritone a half step down. This may be hard to understand so let me demonstrate what I mean:

Above, notice the “F+B” tritone. It is common to play the “E+Bb” tritone right after it.

Notice that in order to move from an “F+B” tritone to an “E+Bb,” you simply move both fingers down ONE key — that’s all. These two tritones are a half step apart (one note apart).

…And that is exactly how we’re going to use them. In fact, those are the same tritones we’re going to use. They will become the left hand chording for two passing chords we’ll use to get us from chord #1 to chord #2 above. Is this stuff interesting or what?

Tritone #1: F+B

Tritone #2: E+Bb

(Just a half step apart).

For both tritones, we’re going to play simple major chords in our right hand. If you haven’t realized by now, we aren’t making up new chords. We’re simply manipulating basic major chords to create contemporary-sounding movements.

For the first tritone, we will play an “A major” chord in our right hand.

Left: F + B /// Right: E + A + C# (an “A major” chord in second inversion)

For the second tritone, we will play an “Ab major” chord in our right hand. So basically, this is like the chord right above but a half step lower. You should only have to move everything down one note — that’s it.

Left: E + Bb /// Right: Eb Ab + C (an “Ab major” chord in second inversion)

So the entire “passing chord” movement is:

Left: F + B /// Right: E + A + C#

Left: E + Bb /// Right: Eb + Ab + C

… Now, let’s stuff this “passing chord” movement into the chord progression from the beginning part of this lesson:

Chord #1:

Left: Ab C Db F Right: Eb Ab C

Passing Chords:

Left: F + B /// Right: E + A + C#

Left: E + Bb /// Right: Eb + Ab + C

Chord #2:

Left: Eb G Ab C Right: Bb Eb G

Note: The “passing chords” above are to be played faster than “chord #1″ and “chord #2.” You can find an example of this very progression in the GospelKeys X “Urban and Contemporary Worship” 2 minute trailer video on the website. Just go to the website and click on the “view video trailer” button and you’ll hear this movement throughout the video sample.

To end, you’ll want to “loop” this movement over and over so here’s a perfect transition to get you from chord #2 back to the beginning:

Again, you’ll be utilizing a tritone on your left hand and a regular major chord on your right hand.

Here it is:

Left: A + Eb /// Right: Ab + Db + F (a “Db maj” chord in second inversion).

This chord will take you back to the beginning. So to end, here’s an example of the entire urban movement:

Chord #1:

Left: Ab C Db F Right: Eb Ab C

Passing Chords:

Left: F + B /// Right: E + A + C#

Left: E + Bb /// Right: Eb + Ab + C

Chord #2:

Left: Eb G Ab C Right: Bb Eb G

Final Passing Chord back to beginning:

Left: A + Eb /// Right: Ab + Db + F

Chords to study for this online classroom:

• Major triads; see pg chapter 5 of 300pg course
• Minor triads; see pg chapter 8 of 300pg course
• Major sixth chords; see pg chapter 13 of 300pg course
• Minor sixth chords; see pg chapter 13 of 300pg course
• Seventh (dominant) chords; see pg chapter 10 of 300pg course
• Minor seventh chords; see pg chapter 10 of 300pg course
• Major ninth chords; see pg chapter 14 of 300pg course

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